`~=`

Not-equal operator: tests element by element whether two values differ.

Category: Language Fundamentals > Operators and Elementary Operations

Syntax

A ~= B

Returns a logical array that is true where A and B differ. Same as ne(A, B).

Description

The comparison is made element by element, so [1 2 3] ~= [1 5 3] gives 0 1 0. A scalar is compared with every element of an array. Character arrays are compared by character code, and a string scalar is compared with another string as a whole.

NaN ~= NaN is true, since NaN is never equal to anything. For complex numbers both the real and the imaginary parts are compared. To test whether two whole arrays differ, use ~isequal(A, B) instead, which returns one scalar.

Input arguments

A, B: Numeric, logical or character arrays, strings, or other comparable values. Sizes must be compatible, with implicit expansion of singleton dimensions.

Output arguments

TF: Logical array with the size of the expanded inputs.

Example

Element-wise inequality

[1 2 3] ~= [1 5 3]
x = 3;
x ~= [1 3 5]
NaN ~= NaN
"cat" ~= "car"

Output

ans = 1×3 logical array

   0   1   0
ans = 1×3 logical array

   1   0   1
ans = logical
   1
ans = logical
   1

~=