YCQL operators

An expression with operators is a compound expression that combines multiple expressions using built-in operators. The following sections discuss the YCQL operators in YugabyteDB.

Null operators

Operator	Description
EXISTS, NOT EXISTS	predicate for existence of a row

`EXISTS` and `NOT EXISTS` can only be used in the `IF` clause.

Unary operators

Operator	Description
-	numeric negation
+	no-op
NOT	Logical (boolean) negation

Unary `-` and `+` can only be used with constant expressions such as `-77`.

Binary operators

Operator	Description
OR, AND	Logical (boolean) expression
=, !=, <, <=, >, >=	Comparison expression
+	Addition, append, or prepend
-	Subtraction or removal
*	Multiplication. Not yet supported
/	Division. Not yet supported
ISNULL, IS NOT NULL	Not yet supported comparison expression.

The first argument of comparison operators must be a column. For example, `column_name = 7`.

Comparing `NULL` with others always yields a `false` value. Operator `ISNULL` or `IS NULL` must be used when comparing with `NULL`.

When `+` and `-` are applied to a NULL argument of `COUNTER` data type, the NULL expression is replaced with a zero value before the computation. When these operators are applied to a NULL expression of all other numeric data types, the computed value is always NULL.

Operator `+` either prepends or appends a value to a LIST while operator `-` removes elements from LIST.

Operator `+` inserts new distinct elements to a MAP or SET while operator `-` removes elements from them.