2.12.4 Comparison Functions and Operators

The following table shows supported comparison functions and operators. The VARLEN Support column identifies functions and operators that support variable-length encoded string columns. See Section 2.7.1, “Encoding String Columns”.

Table 2.4 Comparison Functions and Operators

Name	VARLEN Support	Description
BETWEEN ... AND ...	Yes	Check whether a value is within a range of values
COALESCE()	Yes	Return the first non-NULL argument. Not supported as a JOIN predicate.
=	Yes	Equal operator
<=>		NULL-safe equal to operator
>	Yes	Greater than operator
>=	Yes	Greater than or equal operator
GREATEST()	Yes	Return the largest argument. MySQL 8.0.30 includes support for temporal types with the exception of the YEAR data type. MySQL 8.3.0 includes support for the YEAR data type.
IN()	Yes	Check whether a value is within a set of values. expr IN (value,...) comparisons where the expression is a single value and compared values are constants of the same data type and encoding are optimized for performance. For example, the following IN() comparison is optimized: SELECT * FROM Customers WHERE Country IN ('Germany', 'France', 'Spain');
IS		Test a value against a boolean
IS NOT		Test a value against a boolean
IS NOT NULL	Yes	NOT NULL value test
IS NULL	Yes	NULL value test
ISNULL()		Test whether the argument is NULL
LEAST()	Yes	Return the smallest argument. MySQL 8.0.30 includes support for temporal types with the exception of the YEAR data type. MySQL 8.3.0 includes support for the YEAR data type.
<	Yes	Less than operator
<=	Yes	Less than or equal operator
LIKE	Yes	Simple pattern matching
NOT BETWEEN ... AND ...	Yes	Check whether a value is not within a range of values
!=, <>	Yes	Not equal operator
NOT IN()	Yes	Check whether a value is not within a set of values
NOT LIKE	Yes	Negation of simple pattern matching
STRCMP()	Yes	Compare two strings.