| PostgreSQL 7.4.7 Documentation | ||||
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   SPI_cursor_open sets up a cursor (internally,
   a portal) that will execute a plan prepared by
   SPI_prepare.
  
Using a cursor instead of executing the plan directly has two benefits. First, the result rows can be retrieved a few at a time, avoiding memory overrun for queries that return many rows. Second, a portal can outlive the current procedure (it can, in fact, live to the end of the current transaction). Returning the portal name to the procedure's caller provides a way of returning a row set as result.
name for portal, or NULL to let the system select a name
      execution plan (returned by SPI_prepare)
     
actual parameter values
      An array describing which parameters are null values.
      n indicates a null value (entry in
      values will be ignored); a space indicates a
      nonnull value (entry in values is valid).  If
      nulls is NULL then
      SPI_cursor_open assumes that no parameters
      are null.