SQL Not Equal To Operator - Syntax & Examples

SQL Not Equal Operator: !=

When both SQL expressions are not equal, this operator returns 1 and when they are equal, it returns 0, and when either expression is NULL, it returns NULL. When the expressions return different types of data, (for example, a string and a number), type conversion is performed.

The SQL Not Equal comparison operator (!=) is used to compare two expressions. For example, 15 != 17 comparison operation uses SQL Not Equal operator (!=) between two expressions 15 and 17. 

Note: “!=” and “<>” both will give the same results.

Example:

SELECT * FROM customers WHERE name <> ‘Joe’

Or

SELECT * FROM customers WHERE name != ‘Joe’

The above query will produce all the results where the name is not equal to Joe.

Both the query will produce the same result.

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The Return Value Of SQL Not Equal

SQL Not Equal is a boolean expression. It can return either True (if one expression is not equal to another) or False (if the expressions are equal).

Example:

1 != 2 -----> True

3 != 3 -----> False

Example 1: Get all customer details except customer_id 1

The above-given code will exclude the details of customer_id 1.

Example 2: Get a list of all customers except one specific customer

The above example will exclude the details of the customer whose first name is Elka.

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Example 3: Specifying multiple conditions using SQL Not Operator

We can specify multiple conditions for Not operator using the WHERE clause.

The statement given above will produce the following results.

Example 4: SQL Not operator and SQL Group By clause

SQL Not operator can also be used with the combination of GROUP BY and HAVING clause in the following way:

The city whose sum of points is equal to 3220 is excluded from the results.

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Conclusion

Through this article, you have now gained a solid understanding of SQL Not equal Operator, along with pertinent examples. Equality operator improves the performance of the SQL query.

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