Re: Should I be using cursors?

There are absolutists which state "if you are using cursors you are doing
it wrong". Their belief is often that, if it takes any calculation
between an input and an output, then you should limit yourself to an RPG
read and RPG output operations. I kind of find that poppycock.

Another of their beliefs is that, if you can do "set at a time" updates
then you should. Like
update mytable set payrate=payrate * :hostPayFactor where dept=
:hostSelectedDepartment;
This I have no problem with. Putting that in a cursor makes no sense.

Now, as to your particular situation...
While you did supply your sql statement I don't understand the
recommendation for a cursor. I'm wondering if I do not have all the
information. For example,
Is your statement in a do loop in which some other operation updates one
of the other files involved? For example
do loop...
read thisfile;
// do some calculations
open postFile;
write postFile;
close postFile;
execsql update thisfile set thisfile.colB=postfile.col27 where
thisfile.colA = postfile.col01;
loop...
If this is the case then, yes, you should look at a cursor.

Rob Berendt