>>>I guess, being a lazy person <g>, I was looking for a all-inclusive "<>" "exact" operator. That way I would not have to worry about SET EXACT OFF or ON and simply use "==" when comparing for equal and "<==> ((c) Copyright Dmitry Litvak <g>) for not equal.
>>
>>Your all-inclusive operation is "NOT a == b"
>
>But Sergey said not to use it <g>.

He said exactly what Jim just said, but added parenthesis for clarity.