Performance difference between Explicit and Implicit Cursors in Oracle PL/SQL

There are many articles over the web about the difference between an explicit and implicit cursor. Theoretically, an implicit cursor is nicer and way faster. For an implicit cursor, Oracle takes care of OPEN, FETCH and CLOSE. Which, otherwise needs to be done explicitly while using an explicit cursor.

Let’s look at a demonstration to practically see the performance difference between an Explicit and Implicit cursor. I would use DBMS_UTILITY.GET_TIME to get the delta value of the start and end times of the execution.

In SQL*Plus, I execute the following anonymous block which has two cursors involved, first an explicit cursor and next is a CURSOR FOR loop.

SQL> SET SERVEROUTPUT ON
SQL> DECLARE
  2    l_rec    all_objects%ROWTYPE;
  3    l_start  NUMBER;
  4
  5    CURSOR cur IS
  6      SELECT *
  7      FROM   all_objects;
  8  BEGIN
  9    l_start := DBMS_UTILITY.get_time;
 10
 11    OPEN  cur;
 12    LOOP
 13      FETCH cur
 14      INTO  l_rec;
 15
 16      EXIT WHEN cur%NOTFOUND;
 17
 18      -- Do something.
 19      NULL;
 20    END LOOP;
 21    CLOSE cur;
 22
 23    DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line('Explicit Cursor Loop: ' ||
 24                         (DBMS_UTILITY.get_time - l_start) || ' hsecs');
 25
 26    l_start := DBMS_UTILITY.get_time;
 27
 28    FOR rec IN (SELECT * FROM all_objects) LOOP
 29      -- Do something.
 30      NULL;
 31    END LOOP;
 32
 33    DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line('Implicit Cursor Loop: ' ||
 34                         (DBMS_UTILITY.get_time - l_start) || ' hsecs');
 35  END;
 36  /
Explicit Cursor Loop: 167 hsecs
Implicit Cursor Loop: 108 hsecs

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

SQL>

So the difference is quite significant. The cursor for loop took much less time as compared to the explicit cursor. The time in hsecs is hundredths of a second.