Step 5a: Updating the current row

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When your program has positioned the cursor on a row, you can update the row by using the UPDATE statement with the WHERE CURRENT OF clause. The WHERE CURRENT OF clause specifies a cursor that points to the row that you want to update.

The UPDATE ... WHERE CURRENT OF statement looks like this:

EXEC SQL
 UPDATE table-name
   SET column-1 = value [, column-2 = value] ...
   WHERE CURRENT OF cursor-name
END-EXEC.

When used with a cursor, the UPDATE statement:

Updates only one row—the current row
Identifies a cursor that points to the row to be updated
Requires that the columns updated be named previously in the FOR UPDATE OF clause of the DECLARE CURSOR statement, if an ORDER BY clause was also specified

After you update a row, the cursor's position remains on that row (that is, the current row of the cursor does not change) until you issue a FETCH statement for the next row.