Definition:Exclusive Or

Definition
Exclusive Or is a binary connective which can be written symbolically as $p \oplus q$ whose behaviour is as follows:


 * $p \oplus q$

means:
 * Either $p$ is true or $q$ is true but not both.

or symbolically:
 * $p \oplus q := \left({p \lor q} \right) \land \neg \left({p \land q}\right)$

where $\land$ denotes the and operator and $\lor$ denotes the or operator.

There is no standard symbol for this, but the one shown above is seen commonly enough to be adopted as standard for this site.

Also known as
This usage of or, that disallows the case where both disjuncts are true, is also called:
 * exclusive disjunction
 * logical inequality
 * non-equivalence
 * symmetric difference
 * aut (from the Latin), pronounced out.

Also see

 * Exclusive Or is Negation of Biconditional
 * Non-Equivalence