What does "<=>" in MySQL mean?

Question

What does <=> in MySQL mean and do?

Answer 1

The manual says it all:

NULL-safe equal. This operator performs an equality comparison like the = operator, but returns 1 rather than NULL if both operands are NULL, and 0 rather than NULL if one operand is NULL.

mysql> select NULL <=> NULL;
+---------------+
| NULL <=> NULL |
+---------------+
|             1 |
+---------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> select NULL = NULL;
+-------------+
| NULL = NULL |
+-------------+
|        NULL |
+-------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> select NULL <=> 1;
+------------+
| NULL <=> 1 |
+------------+
|          0 |
+------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> select NULL = 1;
+----------+
| NULL = 1 |
+----------+
|     NULL |
+----------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

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