Cursor v/s direct insert

Question

hi all,
which one is better...?
defining a cursor for an insert or using the select stmt in the insert?
ex1:
declare cursor c1 as
select a,b from table1
begin
for i in c1
loop
insert into table2 values i.a, i.b ;
end loop;
end;
ex2
begin
insert into table2 values (select a, b from table1);
end;
thnks

Answer 1

...and here are the facts:
SQL> set timing on
SQL> declare
  2  cursor c is
  3  select *
  4  from all_Tables;
  5  begin
  6  for r in c loop
  7  insert into test values(
  8  r.OWNER                    ,
  9  r.TABLE_NAME               ,
10  r.TABLESPACE_NAME          ,
11  r.CLUSTER_NAME             ,
12  r.IOT_NAME                 ,
13  r.PCT_FREE                 ,
14  r.PCT_USED                 ,
15  r.INI_TRANS                ,
16  r.MAX_TRANS                ,
17  r.INITIAL_EXTENT           ,
18  r.NEXT_EXTENT              ,
19  r.MIN_EXTENTS              ,
20  r.MAX_EXTENTS              ,
21  r.PCT_INCREASE             ,
22  r.FREELISTS                ,
23  r.FREELIST_GROUPS          ,
24  r.LOGGING                  ,
25  r.BACKED_UP                ,
26  r.NUM_ROWS                 ,
27  r.BLOCKS                   ,
28  r.EMPTY_BLOCKS             ,
29  r.AVG_SPACE                ,
30  r.CHAIN_CNT                ,
31  r.AVG_ROW_LEN              ,
32  r.AVG_SPACE_FREELIST_BLOCKS,
33  r.NUM_FREELIST_BLOCKS,
34  r.DEGREE             ,
35  r.INSTANCES          ,
36  r.CACHE              ,
37  r.TABLE_LOCK         ,
38  r.SAMPLE_SIZE        ,
39  r.LAST_ANALYZED      ,
40  r.PARTITIONED        ,
41  r.IOT_TYPE           ,
42  r.TEMPORARY          ,
43  r.SECONDARY          ,
44  r.NESTED             ,
45  r.BUFFER_POOL        ,
46  r.ROW_MOVEMENT       ,
47  r.GLOBAL_STATS       ,
48  r.USER_STATS         ,
49  r.DURATION           ,
50  r.SKIP_CORRUPT       ,
51  r.MONITORING         ,
52  r.CLUSTER_OWNER      ,
53  r.DEPENDENCIES       ,
54  r.COMPRESSION        ,
55  r.DROPPED
56  );
57  end loop;
58* end;
SQL> /
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
Elapsed: 00:00:04.07
SQL> insert into test
  2  select *
  3  from all_tables;
3718 rows created.
Elapsed: 00:00:01.07
SQL> Regards,
Gerd