Not equal <> != operator on NULL

Question

Could someone please explain the following behavior in SQL?

SELECT * FROM MyTable WHERE MyColumn != NULL (0 Results)
SELECT * FROM MyTable WHERE MyColumn <         


        

Answer 1

I would like to suggest this code I made to find if there is a change in a value, i being the new value and d being the old (although the order does not matter). For that matter, a change from value to null or vice versa is a change but from null to null is not (of course, from value to another value is a change but from value to the same it is not).

CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[ufn_equal_with_nulls]
(
    @i sql_variant,
    @d sql_variant
)
RETURNS bit
AS
BEGIN
    DECLARE @in bit = 0, @dn bit = 0
    if @i is null set @in = 1
    if @d is null set @dn = 1

    if @in <> @dn
        return 0

    if @in = 1 and @dn = 1
        return 1

    if @in = 0 and @dn = 0 and @i = @d
        return 1

    return 0

END

To use this function, you can

declare @tmp table (a int, b int)
insert into @tmp values
(1,1),
(1,2),
(1,null),
(null,1),
(null,null)

---- in select ----
select *, [dbo].[ufn_equal_with_nulls](a,b) as [=] from @tmp

---- where equal ----
select *,'equal' as [Predicate] from @tmp where  [dbo].[ufn_equal_with_nulls](a,b) = 1

---- where not equal ----
select *,'not equal' as [Predicate] from @tmp where  [dbo].[ufn_equal_with_nulls](a,b) = 0

The results are:

---- in select ----
a   b   =
1   1   1
1   2   0
1   NULL    0
NULL    1   0
NULL    NULL    1

---- where equal ----
1   1   equal
NULL    NULL    equal

---- where not equal ----
1   2   not equal
1   NULL    not equal
NULL    1   not equal

The usage of sql_variant makes it compatible for variety of types