It's common practice to fetch a row, then UPDATE it with an UPDATE ... WHERE CURRENT OF <cursor> statement, or to fetch a row, then DELETE it with a DELETE ... WHERE CURRENT OF <cursor> statement. Such techniques are unfriendly in multiuser environments. If it's predictable that a data change will happen after a fetch, then:
You can incorporate the prediction in the WHERE clause so that the selection and data change take place together.
You can incorporate the prediction in a trigger so that the data change becomes situationally dependent.
In short, you don't want to follow this procedure:
SELECT ... OPEN <cursor> FETCH ... IF <search condition> THEN UPDATE ...
Instead, you want to just do this:
UPDATE ... WHERE <search condition>
To avoid the WHERE CURRENT OF clause and cursor trouble, use a ROWID or serial (auto_increment) column.
Don't SELECT/fetch/test/<data change>. Do UPDATE...WHERE <condition>/test and DELETE...WHERE <condition>/test.
To avoid WHERE CURRENT OF and cursor trouble, use a ROWID or serial column.