The DECLARE statement is used to
define various items local to a program:
Local variables. See Section 12.7.3, “Variables in Stored Programs”.
Conditions and handlers. See Section 12.7.4, “Conditions and Handlers”.
Cursors. See Section 12.7.5, “Cursors”.
DECLARE is permitted only inside a
BEGIN ... END
compound statement and must be at its start, before any other
statements.
Declarations must follow a certain order. Cursors must be declared before declaring handlers, and variables and conditions must be declared before declaring either cursors or handlers.