REF CURSOR vs. TABLE function in Oracle

Question

I have PL-SQL packages that return REF cursors when data should be retrieved as part of CRUD operations. Would it be faster if these cursors were replaced by TABLE functions?

thanks

Answer 1

IMO TABLE functions are more useful if you plan to use the pipeline functions of a table . This is not faster, because REF is just a reference to memory. And all the work (parsing, executing, fetching, etc.) will be processed from the function that returns the REF cursor. REF Cursors adds flexibility to the detriment of simple support. This is another MacLochlainns Weblog article on REF courses and pipelined functions - Reference cursors - why, when and how?