Avoiding cursor

Credits: Jared Tarbell

Cursors could be resource consuming. If there is a way to avoid cursor I would go by that first. Following is the simple query showing how to avoid cursors. This query backs up all the user databases to a specified location. It loops to every database in the sysdatabases table.

--//-------------------------------------//-- 
--// Credits http://sqlgear.blogspot.com //--
--//-------------------------------------//--
DECLARE @name VARCHAR(50) --// database name  
DECLARE @path VARCHAR(256) --// path for backup files  
DECLARE @fileName VARCHAR(256) --// filename for backup  
DECLARE @fileDate VARCHAR(20) --// used for file name
DECLARE @Min INT
 ,@Max INT
 ,@SQL NVARCHAR(MAX)

SET @path = 'D:\Backup\'

SELECT @fileDate = CONVERT(VARCHAR(20), GETDATE(), 112)

SELECT @Min = MIN(dbid)
 ,@Max = MAX(dbid)
FROM MASTER.dbo.sysdatabases
WHERE NAME NOT IN (
  'master'
  ,'model'
  ,'msdb'
  ,'tempdb'
  )

WHILE @Max >= @Min
BEGIN
 SELECT @fileName = @path + NAME + '_' + @fileDate + '.BAK'
  ,@name = NAME
 FROM MASTER.dbo.sysdatabases
 WHERE [dbid] = @Min

 BACKUP DATABASE @name TO DISK = @fileName

 SELECT @Min = MIN(dbid)
 FROM MASTER.dbo.sysdatabases
 WHERE [dbid] > @Min
  AND NAME NOT IN (
   'master'
   ,'model'
   ,'msdb'
   ,'tempdb'
   )
END