The forms NEXT, PRIOR, FIRST, LAST, ABSOLUTE, RELATIVE fetch a single row after moving the cursor appropriately. If there is no such row, an empty result is returned, and the cursor is left positioned before the first row or after the last row as appropriate.
The forms using FORWARD and BACKWARD retrieve the indicated number of rows moving in the forward or backward direction, leaving the cursor positioned on the last-returned row (or after/before all rows, if the count exceeds the number of rows available).
RELATIVE 0, FORWARD 0, and BACKWARD 0 all request fetching the current row without moving the cursor, that is, re-fetching the most recently fetched row. This will succeed unless the cursor is positioned before the first row or after the last row; in which case, no row is returned.
The cursor should be declared with the SCROLL option if one intends to use any variants of FETCH other than FETCH NEXT or FETCH FORWARD with a positive count. For simple queries PostgreSQL will allow backwards fetch from cursors not declared with SCROLL, but this behavior is best not relied on. If the cursor is declared with NO SCROLL, no backward fetches are allowed.
ABSOLUTE fetches are not any faster than navigating to the desired row with a relative move: the underlying implementation must traverse all the intermediate rows anyway. Negative absolute fetches are even worse: the query must be read to the end to find the last row, and then traversed backward from there. However, rewinding to the start of the query (as with FETCH ABSOLUTE 0) is fast.
The following example traverses a table using a cursor:
BEGIN WORK;
-- Set up a cursor:
DECLARE liahona SCROLL CURSOR FOR SELECT * FROM films;
-- Fetch the first 5 rows in the cursor liahona:
FETCH FORWARD 5 FROM liahona;
code | title | did | date_prod | kind | len
-------+-------------------------+-----+------------+----------+-------
BL101 | The Third Man | 101 | 1949-12-23 | Drama | 01:44
BL102 | The African Queen | 101 | 1951-08-11 | Romantic | 01:43
JL201 | Une Femme est une Femme | 102 | 1961-03-12 | Romantic | 01:25
P_301 | Vertigo | 103 | 1958-11-14 | Action | 02:08
P_302 | Becket | 103 | 1964-02-03 | Drama | 02:28
-- Fetch the previous row:
FETCH PRIOR FROM liahona;
code | title | did | date_prod | kind | len
-------+---------+-----+------------+--------+-------
P_301 | Vertigo | 103 | 1958-11-14 | Action | 02:08
-- Close the cursor and end the transaction:
CLOSE liahona;
COMMIT WORK;
MOVE repositions a cursor without retrieving any data. MOVE works exactly like the FETCH command, except it only positions the cursor and does not return rows.
BEGIN WORK;
DECLARE liahona CURSOR FOR SELECT * FROM films;
-- Skip the first 5 rows:
MOVE FORWARD 5 IN liahona;
MOVE 5
-- Fetch the 6th row from the cursor liahona:
FETCH 1 FROM liahona;
code | title | did | date_prod | kind | len
-------+--------+-----+------------+--------+-------
P_303 | 48 Hrs | 103 | 1982-10-22 | Action | 01:37
(1 row)
-- Close the cursor liahona and end the transaction:
CLOSE liahona;
COMMIT WORK;
CLOSE frees the resources associated with an open cursor. After the cursor is closed, no subsequent operations are allowed on it. A cursor should be closed when it is no longer needed.
Close the cursor liahona
CLOSE liahona;