---
title: "Operators and literals"
sidebarTitle: "Operators"
description: "Comparison, logical and arithmetic operators, literals, and precedence."
icon: plus-minus
keywords: ["operators", "literals", "precedence", "null", "cast", "interval"]
---

<Badge color="red">Enterprise</Badge> [SQL runs on a deployment.](/sql)

The operator set is DataFusion's. This page covers what is worth knowing when
the operands are Lance columns.

## Comparison {#comparison}

| | |
| --- | --- |
| `=` `!=` `<>` `<` `<=` `>` `>=` | ordinary comparison |
| `IS NULL` / `IS NOT NULL` | null test — `= NULL` is never true |
| `IS DISTINCT FROM` | comparison that treats null as a value |
| `BETWEEN a AND b` | inclusive range |
| `IN (...)` | set membership |
| `LIKE` / `ILIKE` | pattern match, `%` and `_` |
| `~` `~*` `!~` | regular expression match |

<Note>
For keyword matching on a text column, [`contains_tokens`](/sql/scalar-functions#contains-tokens)
is index-accelerated where `LIKE` is not. Reach for `LIKE` only when you need
its wildcard semantics.
</Note>

## Logical {#logical}

`AND`, `OR`, `NOT`. Three-valued: a comparison against null is **unknown**, and
`NOT unknown` is still unknown. A `WHERE` clause keeps only rows where the
predicate is true, so unknown behaves like false there — but not inside `NOT
IN`, which is the usual place this bites. See
[Subqueries](/sql/dql/subqueries#in-exists).

## Arithmetic {#arithmetic}

`+` `-` `*` `/` `%`, with the usual precedence. String concatenation is `||`.

<Warning>
Arithmetic over a vector column is **list** arithmetic, not scalar arithmetic —
a vector is a `FixedSizeList<Float32>`. When the operation you want is a
similarity comparison, use [vector search](/search/vector-search); whether SQL
can express it [depends on the deployment](/basics/sql#no-vector-sql).
</Warning>

## Literals {#literals}

| | |
| --- | --- |
| String | `'text'` — doubled quote to escape: `'it''s'` |
| Number | `42`, `3.14` |
| Boolean | `TRUE`, `FALSE` |
| Null | `NULL` |
| Date / timestamp | `DATE '2026-01-01'`, `TIMESTAMP '2026-01-01 12:00:00'` |
| Interval | `INTERVAL '7 days'` |
| Array | `[1, 2, 3]` |

Identifiers are quoted with double quotes when they need to be — a reserved word
or a name with mixed case: `SELECT "order" FROM "MyTable"`.

## Casting {#casting}

```sql
SELECT CAST(identifier AS VARCHAR), identifier::VARCHAR FROM documents
```

Both forms work. `TRY_CAST` returns null instead of erroring on a value that
will not convert, which is the one to use over a column you do not control.

## Precedence {#precedence}

Highest to lowest: `::` → unary `-` → `* / %` → `+ -` → `||` → comparison →
`IS` → `NOT` → `AND` → `OR`.

Parenthesize anything mixing `AND` and `OR`. `a OR b AND c` is `a OR (b AND c)`,
which is rarely what was meant.