The result of a comparison operator has the Boolean data type. This has three values: TRUE, FALSE, and UNKNOWN. Expressions that return a Boolean data type are known as Boolean expressions.

Unlike other SQL Server data types, a Boolean data type cannot be specified as the data type of a table column or variable, and cannot be returned in a result set.

When SET ANSI_NULLS is ON, an operator that has one or two NULL expressions returns UNKNOWN. When SET ANSI_NULLS is OFF, the same rules apply, except an equals (=) operator returns TRUE if both expressions are NULL. For example, NULL = NULL returns TRUE when SET ANSI_NULLS is OFF.

Expressions with Boolean data types are used in the WHERE clause to filter the rows that qualify for the search conditions and in control-of-flow language statements such as IF and WHILE, for example:

USE AdventureWorks;
GO
DECLARE @MyProduct int;
SET @MyProduct = 750;
IF (@MyProduct <> 0)
   SELECT ProductID, Name, ProductNumber
   FROM Production.Product
   WHERE ProductID = @MyProduct
GO

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