Understanding Open Cursor

Question

Hi All, I am confused on this open cursor as I would like to understand further if I am hitting my limit. Currently I do not see the error that my open cursor exceeded.
If I add up the a.value on the second sql, I am getting more than 10k, but my open cursor is only set to 5000. I must be calculating this wrongly here.
open cursor = 5000
session_cached_cursors 200
select max(a.value), a.sid, b.program
from v$sesstat a, v$session b, v$statname c
where a.sid = b.sid
and a.statistic# = c.statistic#
and c.name = 'opened cursors current'
group by a.sid, b.program
order by 1 desc
MAX(A.VALUE) SID PROGRAM
2201 596
516 514 abc@server1 (TNS V1-V3)
401 720 abc@server1 (TNS V1-V3)
602 670 abc@server1 (TNS V1-V3)
578 445 abc@server1 (TNS V1-V3)
129 rows selected.
Would like to know what is the current open cursor count?
If I get the sid like above, can I know what SQL is holding it up?

Answer 1

What total do you get if you use the query from this article? See 'Monitoring open cursors'. Note that it includes serial#
http://www.orafaq.com/node/758
--total cursors open, by session
select a.value, s.username, s.sid, s.serial#
from v$sesstat a, v$statname b, v$session s
where a.statistic# = b.statistic#  and s.sid=a.sid
and b.name = 'opened cursors current';
If I sum up the a.value it is again more than 10k but the highest a.value is only 2000+
OPEN_CURSORS specifies the maximum number of open cursors (handles to private SQL areas) a session can have at once. Since it is saying open cursor by a single session. I would suppose my max value now is 2000+ while my max_cursor set is 5000. Am I right?