Oracle/PLSQL: CURSOR FOR Loop

The syntax for the CURSOR FOR Loop is:

FOR record_index in cursor_name
LOOP
      {.statements.}
END LOOP;

You would use a CURSOR FOR Loop when you want to fetch and process every record in a cursor. The CURSOR FOR Loop will terminate when all of the records in the cursor have been fetched.

Here is an example of a function that uses a CURSOR FOR Loop:

CREATE OR REPLACE Function TotalIncome
    ( name_in IN varchar2 )
    RETURN varchar2
IS
    total_val number(6);

    cursor c1 is
      select monthly_income
      from employees
      where name = name_in;

BEGIN

total_val := 0;

FOR employee_rec in c1
LOOP
    total_val := total_val + employee_rec.monthly_income;
END LOOP;

RETURN total_val;

END;

In this example, we've created a cursor called c1. The CURSOR FOR Loop will terminate after all records have been fetched from the cursor c1.