What is the function of an Oracle cursor?

The purpose of Oracle cursors in PL/SQL code is to handle and manipulate the database query result set. Cursors are like pointers that can be used to navigate through the result set line by line, allowing for reading, updating, or deleting operations on each row.

By utilizing cursors, one can loop through query result sets in PL/SQL code to perform row-by-row operations. Cursors offer a mechanism for processing data line by line, such as performing calculations, evaluations, or other operations on each row within a loop.

The advantage of using cursors is that they allow programmers to handle and manipulate database query result sets more flexibly. With cursors, you can locate and operate on specific rows in the result set without needing to load the entire result set into memory at once, thus saving memory resources.

In general, the role of Oracle cursors is to process and manipulate database query results sets line by line within the PL/SQL code, offering a flexible and efficient way to handle large datasets.