Operators

Operators are symbols that tell Notion’s formula engine to perform specific operations.

Here’s a very simple example:

2 + 2

This statement uses the add (+) operator to perform addition on two numbers. This formula will return a result of 4.

The numbers on each side of the + operator are called operands. Operands are the discrete data objects that are either evaluated or manipulated by the operator.

In Notion formulas, operands have one of four data types – string, number, Boolean (checkbox), and date.

Operands can be hard-coded:

"Monkey D. Luffy will be " + "King of the Pirates!"

They can also pass data from another database property:

prop("First Name") + prop("Last Name")

You can also mix and match:

prop("First Name") + " " + prop("Last Name") + " will be King of the Pirates!"

Good to know: Notion’s formula engine does not do automatic type conversion, so binary operators (operators with two operands) must have operands of the same data type.
E.g. 2 + "2" will throw a Type Mismatch error because one operand is a number and the other is a string. You must convert one or the other so they are of the same type.

Notion’s formula editor provides three types of operators:

1. Mathematical operators
2. Logical operators
3. Comparison operators
4. Special Operators

Mathematical Operators

Mathematical operators allow you to do math on numbers.

Here are all the mathematical operators Notion provides. Note that Notion also provides a function version of each one, which I’ve listed in the reference table.

Operator	Symbol	Function Version	Example
add	+	add()	2 + 2
subtract	-	subtract()	4 - 2
multiply	*	multiply()	5 * 5
divide	/	divide()	21 / 3
pow	^	pow()	2 ^ 3
mod	%	mod()	12 % 5
unaryMinus	-	unaryMinus()	-4 (same as -(4))

Logical Operators

Logical operators return a Boolean value, and often allow you to combine and evaluate multiple expressions.

Notion provides three logical operators.

Good to know: Notion is picky about how you must write logical operators. Only the listed symbols will work, and they are case-sensitive.
E.g. You must use and for the and operator – And, AND, and && will not work in Notion.

Operator	Symbol	Function Version	Example
and	and	and()	2 > 3 and 4 < 8
or	or	or()	2 > 1 or 6 > 5
not	not	not()	not empty("Hello")

Comparison Operators

Comparison operators allow you to compare operands that share a data type.

Notion provides six comparison operators:

Operator	Symbol	Function Version	Example
equal	==	equal()	2 == 2
unequal	!=	unequal()	4 != 2
larger	>	larger()	5 > 3
largerEq	>=	largerEq()	4 >= 4
smaller	<	smaller()	6 < 9
smallerEq	<=	smallerEq()	9 <= 9

Good to know: Comparison operators cannot be chained in formulas.
E.g. 1 < 2 < 3 will not work. Instead, use 1 < 2 and 2 < 3.

Special Operators

Notion also provides two special operators that don’t fit neatly into the categories above.

The unaryPlus operator is the only operator that does type conversion; it converts strings and Booleans to numbers (use toNumber or timestamp if you need to convert a date to a number).

The if operator – also known as the ternary operator – lets you create if-then statements and branching logic in Notion formulas.

Operator	Symbol	Function Version	Example
unaryPlus	+	unaryPlus()	+"3" = 3
if	? and :	if()	2==2 ? true : false

Operator Precedence

Notion formulas can contain many operators, which can let you solve complex problems.

For example:

// Output: true
-((+"5")^2) < 20 - 10 ? true : false

When multiple operators are present in a Notion formula, their order of execution is determined by Notion’s operator precedence rules:

Operator Precedence and Associativity – Thomas Frank

thomasjfrank.com