What is the difference between <> and != operators in MySQL?

mysql operators

27,823

Solution 1

They are both exactly the same. See the documentation.

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/comparison-operators.html#operator_not-equal

Solution 2

<> should be preferred, all things being equal, since it accords with the sql standard and is technically more portable...

!= is non-standard, but most db's implement it.

sql:2008 grammar:

<not equals operator> ::=
  <>

Solution 3

No difference. <> is sql standard, != non-standard.

Solution 4

Nothing. Simply two different ways of writing the same thing

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Alain Tiemblo

I am a geek who subscribed there to have fun. Some people do gaming, some poeple do chatting, and I do code. I can answer a lot of questions, but I prefer strange and challenging problems in PHP, Symfony and/or MySQL. About opensource, I developed twigfiddle.com, a website that provides a small development environment to develop, run, store and access Twig code online, the symfony collection jQuery plugin to handle client-side of Symfony collections, and domajax, a jquery plugin built to make ajax interactions easier and cleaner. You'll find me the most on the php, twig, curl and gd tags.

Updated on September 16, 2020

Comments

Alain Tiemblo over 3 years

If I use a simple table such as :

create table test ( a int );
insert into test values ( 1 ) , ( 2 ) , ( 2 ) , ( 3 );
select * from test where a <> 2;
select * from test where a != 2;

Both give me :

+------+
| a    |
+------+
|    1 |
|    3 |
+------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)

So what is the difference between <> and != mysql operators ?

Alain Tiemblo over 11 years

Thank you, strange notation. Just seen that on a coworker code and just got stuck.
anothershrubery over 11 years

Yeah, while I use C-based languages mainly I tend to use <> even though != feels more natural to me. <> just seems right for any SQL representation.
Dennis almost 7 years

why is it technically more portable?
Cave Johnson almost 6 years

@Dennis I guess because it is sql standard.
mingchau almost 5 years

@Dennis it should be more compatible to use <> and easily to transplant the query in different RDBMS. so it's considering portable?