This example uses MS SQL Server.

As a regular maintenance routine, you may want to run DBCC CheckTable on all the tables in your database (or some other type of operation).  Instead of hand-coding all the tables into a procedure, here's a way to loop through all the tables, perform a DBCC CheckTable (or any other operation) without using a cursor.

<code lang="sql">
-- Declare counter variables
-- @min will be the "current" record being examined
-- @max is the highest record.
declare @min int,
        @max int

-- Declare a variable to hold the name of the table:
declare @tablename sysname

-- Set the initial values for the counter variables
-- @min is the lowest record meeting our condition,
-- @max is the highest:
select @min = min(id),
       @max = max(id)
  from sysobjects
 where type = 'u'

-- Establish loop conditions:
-- Continue running until @min is equal to @max
while @min <= @max
   begin

   -- Populate the tablename variable based on
   -- the current value of @min
   select @tablename = name
     from sysobjects
    where id = @min

   -- Execute the DBCC (or other operation)
   dbcc checktable (@tablename)

   -- Advance the counter.
   -- Note the where condition is identical to the
   -- initial loop condition with one additional
   -- bit: "and id > @min"
   select @min = min(id)
     from sysobjects
    where type = 'u'
      and id > @min

   -- Exit the loop
   end
</code>

While this example uses MS SQL and the sysobjects table, it is easy enough to adjust the basic structure to MySQL or any other table that has an auto-incrementing, unique integer.  If you don't have one of those, or you want to sort the records some other way, create a temp table with it's own auto-incrementing integer and the Primary Key of the table you want to adjust (make sure you drop the temp table when you're finished).

I am a firm believer that a cursor is never the right answer.  This is a much simpler and cleaner way to achieve the same basic result without all the extra over-head a cursor places on the database engine.