Infix operator for
string comparison inside
expr. Returns true if its arguments are not
string-equal.
Its opposite part is
eq, which returns true if its arguments are string-equal.
Differs from
!= in such that its arguments cannot be treated as numerical values, so 1 != 1.0 returns false, but 1 ne 1.0 returns true.
Example:
% expr {"a" eq "b"}
0
% expr {"a" ne "b"}
1
%
% expr {"1" eq "1.0"}
0
% expr {"1" == "1.0"}
1
Also comparing text with
ne is faster than
!=. From
Practical programming in Tcl and Tk, by Brent B. Welch, Ken Jones, Jeffrey Hobbs: "The
eq and
ne expr operators were introduced in 8.4 to allow more compact strict string comparison. These operations also work faster because the unnecessary conversions are eliminated."