I come from a c style languages, so I am natural in using !=
as not equal, but when I came to Python, from the documentation I read, I learned that for this pur
Python 2 supports both, in python 3 the <>
operator has been removed.
There is no difference between the two, but != is the preferred form.
From the official docs you linked
!= can also be written <>, but this is an obsolete usage kept for backwards compatibility only. New code should always use !=.
I believe the rationale for originally accepting <>
was that it looked more natural for someone coming from a mathematical background than the common C-style !=
operator.
I don't know what documentation you read, but I'm not aware of any that recommends <>
over !=
. PEP8, the main style guide, doesn't mention any such recommendation.
Just for the record,<>
has been obsolete since at least as early as version 1.4, which was released in October 1996.