Thread: != and <> operators

Hi!

I've for a while now been using the != operator in my sql queries, but in
almost all examples I see <> instead. Are there any good reason to use
any instead of the other? I prefer !=, but if you convince me, I'll change to
what you other guys are using ;-)

Regards,
Patrik Kudo

ech`echo xiun|tr nu oc|sed 'sx\([sx]\)\([xoi]\)xo un\2\1 is xg'`ol
Känns det oklart? Fråga på!

Patrik Kudo <kudo@partitur.se> writes:
> I've for a while now been using the != operator in my sql queries, but in
> almost all examples I see <> instead. Are there any good reason to use
> any instead of the other? I prefer !=, but if you convince me, I'll change to
> what you other guys are using ;-)

"<>" is the SQL-standard name, and also the internal name of all these
operators.  There is a hardwired hack in the lexer to convert != to <>.
So write whichever you feel like, but <> is what you'll see in dumps and
so forth ...
        regards, tom lane

How many of the other dbms' out there have this "hardwired hack"? Is
something that's postgres-specific, or is it found in oracle and sqlserver
too?

Regards,
Patrik Kudo

ech`echo xiun|tr nu oc|sed 'sx\([sx]\)\([xoi]\)xo un\2\1 is xg'`ol
Känns det oklart? Fråga på!

On Tue, 13 Mar 2001, Tom Lane wrote:

> Patrik Kudo <kudo@partitur.se> writes:
> > I've for a while now been using the != operator in my sql queries, but in
> > almost all examples I see <> instead. Are there any good reason to use
> > any instead of the other? I prefer !=, but if you convince me, I'll change to
> > what you other guys are using ;-)
>
> "<>" is the SQL-standard name, and also the internal name of all these
> operators.  There is a hardwired hack in the lexer to convert != to <>.
> So write whichever you feel like, but <> is what you'll see in dumps and
> so forth ...
>
>             regards, tom lane
>