SQL NOT Operator Tutorial

Example Table

We will use the following table named employees for our examples:


    CREATE TABLE employees (
        employee_id INT PRIMARY KEY,
        employee_name VARCHAR(50),
        department VARCHAR(50)
    );

    INSERT INTO employees (employee_id, employee_name, department) VALUES
    (1, 'Alice Johnson', 'HR'),
    (2, 'Bob Smith', 'IT'),
    (3, 'Charlie Brown', 'Finance'),
    (4, 'Diana Prince', 'IT'),
    (5, 'Eve Davis', 'Marketing');

Employees Table

employee_id	employee_name	department
1	Alice Johnson	HR
2	Bob Smith	IT
3	Charlie Brown	Finance
4	Diana Prince	IT
5	Eve Davis	Marketing

Using SQL NOT Operator

SQL NOT is used to negate a condition in a query.

Example: Find Employees Not in IT Department

To find employees who are not in the IT department, use the following query:


    SELECT employee_name, department
    FROM employees
    WHERE department NOT IN ('IT');

Result:

employee_name	Alice Johnson
department	HR
employee_name	Charlie Brown
department	Finance
employee_name	Eve Davis
department	Marketing

Example: Find Employees Not Named 'Bob Smith'

To find employees whose name is not 'Bob Smith', use the following query:


    SELECT employee_name, department
    FROM employees
    WHERE employee_name != 'Bob Smith';