Why I am getting cursor statement in the output?

Question

I am learning PL/SQL and I fired this query in the SQL Command Line

SELECT DNAME, CURSOR(SELECT SALARY, COMMISSSION_PCT 
                     FROM  EMP e 
                     WHERE e.did=101) 
from dept d 
order by dname;

DNAME                                                                           
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CURSOR(SELECTSALARY,                                                            
--------------------                                                            
AI                                                                              
CURSOR STATEMENT : 2                                                            

CURSOR STATEMENT : 2

    SALARY COMMISSSION_PCT                                                      
---------- ---------------                                                      
     12000              .3                                                      
     19000              .5                                                      
     10000              .4                                                      


Nano_tech                                                                       
CURSOR STATEMENT : 2                                                            

CURSOR STATEMENT : 2

Why am I getting CURSOR STATEMENT:2 while I have more than 2 tuples in the database? I know cursor acts like a pointer in PL/SQL but shouldn't it return 3 rather than 2?

Answer 1

The "2" in

CURSOR STATEMENT : 2

emitted by SQL*Developer is telling you that the cursor is in the 2nd column of your query output. It is NOT implying that the cursor's results contain 2 rows.

Replace your query with this:

SELECT DNAME, 'XXX' DUMMY, CURSOR(SELECT SALARY, COMMISSSION_PCT 
                           FROM  EMP e 
                           WHERE e.did=101) 
from dept d 
order by dname;

And SQL*Developer will start emitting "CURSOR STATEMENT: 3".