the problem with eof is u must select ... into cursor curse
what if u just want to know if records are present or not
it gets quiet a pain to the check for eof and 'use' the
cursor to destroy it,
rather use select 1 from .. into array arr
if _tally
....
.... and no need to stores alias() to switch back to
and no need to destroy the cursor just created and
no need to blah .. blah .. blah

rajatkanti