!=

USAGE

value1 != value2

DETAILS

The != operator compares two values, returning 0 (false) if both values are equivalent, otherwise 1 (true).

If at least one value is a number, a numeric comparison is performed. Thus, a string value is converted into a number when paired with a numeric value.

When both value are strings, the comparison takes into account the current sort order, which might treat uppercase and lowercase letters as equivalent. If you need to ignore case, consider negating the return value from IDENTICAL() or casting one of the string values to a BINARY type.

A NULL is returned if either value is NULL.

The function call NEQ(x, y) behaves in exactly the same manner as the conditional expression x != y.

EXAMPLES

SELECT 99 != 123,
       PI() != 3.141592653589793 AS pi_neq;

+-----------+--------+
| 99 != 123 | pi_neq |
+-----------+--------+
|         1 |      0 |
+-----------+--------+

-- Disable strict mode or the comparison might throw an error
SET sql_mode = '';
SELECT 99 != '99a', 'abc' != 0;

+-------------+------------+
| 99 != '99a' | 'abc' != 0 |
+-------------+------------+
|           0 |          0 |
+-------------+------------+

CREATE TABLE not_eq_example (
  description VARCHAR(20),
  example INT
);

INSERT INTO not_eq_example VALUES
  ('Everything', 42),
  ('Dalmations', 101),
  ('Agent', 99),
  ('B. Doz.', 13),
  ('CPU', 64);

SELECT *
FROM not_eq_example
WHERE example != 101 AND description != 'B. Doz.';

+-------------+---------+
| description | example |
+-------------+---------+
| Everything  |      42 |
| Agent       |      99 |
| CPU         |      64 |
+-------------+---------+

CHANGE HISTORY