ASA Programming Guide
Using SQL in Applications
Working with cursors
You can configure the following aspects of cursor behavior when you open the cursor:
Isolation level You can explicitly set the isolation level of operations on a cursor to be different from the current isolation level of the transaction. To do this, set the ISOLATION_LEVEL option.
For more information, see ISOLATION_LEVEL option [compatibility].
Holding By default, cursors in embedded SQL close at the end of a transaction. Opening a cursor WITH HOLD allows you to keep it open until the end of a connection, or until you explicitly close it. ODBC, JDBC and Open Client leave cursors open at the end of transactions by default.