old-ne-operator :: Pylint :: W0331

Error:

old-ne-operator, Use of the <> operator

Description

Raised by pylint, when old inequality operator <> is used. This error is not fatal but considered a bad practice and could result in unexpected behavior.

Example(s)

Given sample of code describe basic divide function, it takes two arguments a and b. We have simple divided first argument with second and returned result. We have calculated division in case of inequality while constant 1 for equality case.

def divide(a, b):
    """
    function to take two arguments to divide first by second
    """
    try:
        if a <> b:
            result = a/b
        else:
            result = 1
    except ZeroDivisionError:
        result = 0
    return result

Solution(s)

This could be resolved using standard != for testing not equal.

Use !=

def divide(a, b):
    """
    function to take two arguments to divide first by second
    """
    try:
        if a != b:
            result = a/b
        else:
            result = 1
    except ZeroDivisionError:
        result = 0
    return result