FETCH(7)

💖 FETCH(7) — grab those rows, bestie 💖

Okay so picture this: you're deep in the PostgreSQL 15.19 docs, manual section 7, and you find FETCH. It's giving "cursor's personal assistant" energy and honestly? Iconic. Let's get into it 🫶

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✨ NAME ✨

FETCH — retrieve rows from a query using a cursor. That's it. That's the whole vibe. You point at a cursor and it hands you rows 💅

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

FETCH [ direction ] [ FROM | IN ] cursor_name

and direction can be literally any of these cuties:

NEXT
PRIOR
FIRST
LAST
ABSOLUTE count
RELATIVE count
count
ALL
FORWARD
FORWARD count
FORWARD ALL
BACKWARD
BACKWARD count
BACKWARD ALL

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So FETCH retrieves rows using a cursor you already created. Cursors don't create themselves, bestie — that's a whole other command, we'll get there 👀

A cursor has an associated position, and that's what FETCH plays with. The position can be before the first row of the query result, on any particular row of the result, or after the last row of the result. When a cursor is created, it's positioned before the first row (yes, like hovering awkwardly outside the group chat before you send the first message). After fetching some rows, the cursor is positioned on the row most recently retrieved. And if FETCH runs off the end of the available rows, then the cursor is left positioned after the last row — or before the first row if you're fetching backward. FETCH ALL or FETCH BACKWARD ALL will always leave the cursor positioned after the last row or before the first row. No exceptions, no cap 🧚

The forms NEXT, PRIOR, FIRST, LAST, ABSOLUTE, RELATIVE fetch a single row after moving the cursor appropriately. If there is no such row, an empty result is returned, and the cursor is left positioned before the first row or after the last row as appropriate. Awkward but honest.

The forms using FORWARD and BACKWARD retrieve the indicated number of rows moving in the forward or backward direction, leaving the cursor positioned on the last-returned row — or after/before all rows, if the count exceeds the number of rows available. Slay.

RELATIVE 0, FORWARD 0, and BACKWARD 0 all request fetching the current row without moving the cursor, that is, re-fetching the most recently fetched row. This will succeed unless the cursor is positioned before the first row or after the last row, in which case no row is returned. Fair enough honestly.

📌 Note This page describes usage of cursors at the SQL command level. If you're trying to use cursors inside a PL/pgSQL function, the rules are different — see Section 43.7.3. Different rules, different vibe, don't mix them up 🙈

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💜 PARAMETERS 💜

• direction — direction defines the fetch direction and number of rows to fetch. It can be one of the following:
  • NEXT — Fetch the next row. This is the default if direction is omitted. The loml of defaults 💖
  • PRIOR — Fetch the prior row.
  • FIRST — Fetch the first row of the query (same as ABSOLUTE 1). Main character of the result set 👑
  • LAST — Fetch the last row of the query (same as ABSOLUTE -1).
  • ABSOLUTE count — Fetch the count'th row of the query, or the abs(count)'th row from the end if count is negative. Position before first row or after last row if count is out of range; in particular, ABSOLUTE 0 positions before the first row.
  • RELATIVE count — Fetch the count'th succeeding row, or the abs(count)'th prior row if count is negative. RELATIVE 0 re-fetches the current row, if any.
  • count — Fetch the next count rows (same as FORWARD count).
  • ALL — Fetch all remaining rows (same as FORWARD ALL). Go big or go home ✨
  • FORWARD — Fetch the next row (same as NEXT).
  • FORWARD count — Fetch the next count rows. FORWARD 0 re-fetches the current row.
  • FORWARD ALL — Fetch all remaining rows.
  • BACKWARD — Fetch the prior row (same as PRIOR).
  • BACKWARD count — Fetch the prior count rows (scanning backwards). BACKWARD 0 re-fetches the current row.
  • BACKWARD ALL — Fetch all prior rows (scanning backwards).
• count — count is a possibly-signed integer constant, determining the location or number of rows to fetch. For FORWARD and BACKWARD cases, specifying a negative count is equivalent to changing the sense of FORWARD and BACKWARD. Sneaky little sign flip, iykyk 😌
• cursor_name — An open cursor's name. Not a closed one. Open. Periot.

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🔥 OUTPUTS 🔥

On successful completion, a FETCH command returns a command tag of the form

FETCH count

The count is the number of rows fetched (possibly zero — it happens, don't take it personally). Note that in psql, the command tag will not actually be displayed, since psql displays the fetched rows instead. So like… you won't even see it, but it's there, doing its thing behind the scenes 🎀

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🌈 NOTES 🌈

The cursor should be declared with the SCROLL option if you intend to use any variants of FETCH other than FETCH NEXT or FETCH FORWARD with a positive count. For simple queries PostgreSQL will allow backwards fetch from cursors not declared with SCROLL, but this behavior is best not relied on — fr fr, don't build your whole thing on it. If the cursor is declared with NO SCROLL, no backward fetches are allowed. Zero. None. Blocked 💀

ABSOLUTE fetches are not any faster than navigating to the desired row with a relative move: the underlying implementation must traverse all the intermediate rows anyway. Negative absolute fetches are even worse: the query must be read to the end to find the last row, and then traversed backward from there. However, rewinding to the start of the query (as with FETCH ABSOLUTE 0) is fast. One fast case, the rest is cardio 🏃‍♀️

DECLARE is used to define a cursor. Use MOVE to change cursor position without retrieving data. Different tool, different job, both valid 💅

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🍓 EXAMPLES 🍓

The following example traverses a table using a cursor:

BEGIN WORK;

-- Set up a cursor:
DECLARE liahona SCROLL CURSOR FOR SELECT * FROM films;

-- Fetch the first 5 rows in the cursor liahona:
FETCH FORWARD 5 FROM liahona;

 code  |          title          | did | date_prod  |   kind   |  len
-------+-------------------------+-----+------------+----------+-------
 BL101 | The Third Man           | 101 | 1949-12-23 | Drama    | 01:44
 BL102 | The African Queen       | 101 | 1951-08-11 | Romantic | 01:43
 JL201 | Une Femme est une Femme | 102 | 1961-03-12 | Romantic | 01:25
 P_301 | Vertigo                 | 103 | 1958-11-14 | Action   | 02:08
 P_302 | Becket                  | 103 | 1964-02-03 | Drama    | 02:28

-- Fetch the previous row:
FETCH PRIOR FROM liahona;

 code  |  title  | did | date_prod  |  kind  |  len
-------+---------+-----+------------+--------+-------
 P_301 | Vertigo | 103 | 1958-11-14 | Action | 02:08

-- Close the cursor and end the transaction:
CLOSE liahona;
COMMIT WORK;

Look at that table. Gorgeous. Vertigo ate and left no crumbs 🎬

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⭐ COMPATIBILITY ⭐

The SQL standard defines FETCH for use in embedded SQL only. The variant of FETCH described here returns the data as if it were a SELECT result rather than placing it in host variables. Other than this point, FETCH is fully upward-compatible with the SQL standard. We're compatible, we're upward, we're fine 🫶

The FETCH forms involving FORWARD and BACKWARD, as well as the forms FETCH count and FETCH ALL, in which FORWARD is implicit, are PostgreSQL extensions. Yep, that's us, we added those 💅

The SQL standard allows only FROM preceding the cursor name; the option to use IN, or to leave them out altogether, is an extension. Live a little, drop the preposition 😌

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💀 SEE ALSO 💀

CLOSE(7), DECLARE(7), MOVE(7)

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And that's the whole page, bestie — straight from the PostgreSQL 15.19 docs, dated 2026, manual page FETCH(7). Go fetch some rows, you absolute icon 🌟💖