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+.\" This is -*-nroff-*-
+.\" XXX standard disclaimer belongs here....
+.\" $Header: /cvsroot/pgsql/src/man/Attic/declare.l,v 1.1 1997/09/08 17:49:41 momjian Exp $
+.TH FETCH SQL 01/23/93 PostgreSQL PostgreSQL
+.SH NAME
+declere \(em declare a cursor
+.SH SYNOPSIS
+.nf
+\fBdeclare\fR [ \fBbinary\fR ] \fBcursor for\fR select statement
+.fi
+.SH DESCRIPTION
+.BR Declare
+allows a user to create cursors.
+Cursors are only available in transactions.
+.PP
+Normal cursors return data back in ASCII format.  Since data is stored
+natively in binary format, the system must do a conversion to produce
+the ASCII format.  In addition, ASCII formats are often larger in size
+than binary format.  Once the attributes come back in ASCII, often the
+client application then has to convert it to a binary format to
+manipulate it anyway.
+.PP
+\fBBinary\fR cursors give you back the data in the native binary
+representation.  Thus, binary cursors will tend to be a little faster
+since there's less overhead of conversion.
+.PP
+However, ASCII is architectural neutral whereas binary representation
+can differ between different machine architecture.  Thus, if your client
+machine uses a different representation than you server machine, getting
+back attributes in binary format is probably not what you want. Also, if
+your main purpose is displaying the data in ASCII, then getting it back
+in ASCII will save you some effort on the client side.
+.PP
+For an example, see the fetch(l) manual page.
+.SH "SEE ALSO"
+fetch(l),
+begin(l),
+end(l),
+select(l).