Comparison operators

Comparison operators are used to test the equality of two input expressions. They are typically used in the WHERE clause of a query.

Any value can be compared with another value of the same type. The comparison logics are as follows:

• For boolean values, true is greater than false.
• For integer and unsigned integer values, the comparison is natural.
• For floating point values, the comparison is natural, with extra caveats:
  • NaN is sorted as greater than all other values and equal to itself, in contradiction with the IEEE standard.
  • +0 is equal to -0.
• For string values, the comparison is lexicographical.
• For binary values, the comparison is lexicographical on the byte representation.
• For timestamp value, the comparison is natural.
• For interval values, the comparison is natural.
• For array values, the comparison is lexicographical on an element-wise basis.
• For object values, the comparison is lexicographical on the key-value pairs, sorted by keys.
• For any values, if the types of the two values are same, the comparison follows the rules above. If the types are different, the comparison follows the following type order:
  • Object > Array > Interval > Timestamp > Boolean > String > Binary > Float > Unsigned Int > Int
  • For example, an integer is always less than a string, and a string is always less than an object.
• Any comparison with NULL returns NULL.

List of comparison operators

Operator	Syntax	Description
=	a = b	a is equal to b.
!=	a != b	a is not equal to b.
<>	a <> b	a is not equal to b.
>	a > b	a is greater than b.
>=	a >= b	a is greater than or equal to b.
<	a < b	a is less than b.
<=	a <= b	a is less than or equal to b.