Specifies the columns in a cursor that you or your program might later modify with an UPDATE statement. The column names in the FOR UPDATE clause must belong to a table or view named in the FROM clause. You do not have to specify the FOR UPDATE clause of the DECLARE CURSOR statement to later modify rows using the UPDATE statement: o If you do specify a FOR UPDATE clause and later specify columns in the UPDATE statement that are not in the FOR UPDATE clause, SQL issues a warning message and proceeds with the update modifications. o If you do not specify a FOR UPDATE clause, you can update any column using the UPDATE statement. SQL does not issue any messages. The FOR UPDATE OF clause in a SELECT statement provides UPDATE ONLY CURSOR semantics by locking all the rows selected.