Question About Cursors - ???

Ok, I started thinking about this today and realized I don't have a clear understanding of it:

What is the relationship between "open cursors" (i.e. the cursors you can view in the v$open_cursors view) and previously parsed sql statements that reside in the library cache (i.e. the sql statements you can view in the v$sql view)?

What I am trying to get at is:

Every DML statement opens an implicit cursor, right? And every parsed sql (DML) statement gets loaded into the library cache, right? So, where does the "memory" space for cursors exist? In the library cache? Or somewhere else?

What is a "cursor" anyway??? What does it mean to open a cursor and how does it relate to sql statements in the library cache. I was doing fine until I really started to think about it...

Thanks

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Before you buy. Received on Fri Jun 16 2000 - 00:00:00 CDT