Syntax

Expression1 [< | > | <= | >= | <> | =] expression2

Description

Comparison operators return True or False depending on the operator.

Comments

The comparison operators are listed in the following table:

Operator

Returns True If

>

expression1 is greater than expression2

<

expression1 is less than expression2

<=

expression1 is less than or equal to expression2

>=

expression1 is greater than or equal to expression2

<>

expression1 is not equal to expression2

=

expression1 is equal to expression2

This operator behaves differently depending on the types of the expressions, as shown in the following table:

If one
expression is

 and the other
expression is

 
Then

Numeric

Numeric

A numeric comparison is performed (see below).

String

String

A string comparison is performed (see below).

Numeric

String

A compile error is generated.

Variant

String

A string comparison is performed (see below).

Variant

Numeric

A variant comparison is performed (see below).

Null variant

Any data type

Returns Null.

Variant

Variant

A variant comparison is performed (see below).

String Comparisons

If the two expressions are strings, then the operator performs a text comparison between the two string expressions, returning True if expression1 is less than expression2. The text comparison is case-sensitive if Option Compare is Binary; otherwise, the comparison is case-insensitive.

When comparing letters with regard to case, lowercase characters in a string sort greater than uppercase characters, so a comparison of "a" and "A" would indicate that "a" is greater than "A".

Numeric Comparisons

When comparing two numeric expressions, the less precise expression is converted to be the same type as the more precise expression.

Dates are compared as doubles. This may produce unexpected results as it is possible to have two dates that, when viewed as text, display as the same date when, in fact, they are different. This can be seen in the following example:

  Sub Main()

    Dim date1 As Date
    Dim date2 As Date

    date1 = Now

    date2 = date1 + 0.000001  'Adds a fraction of a second.

    MsgBox date2 = date1    'Prints False (the dates are different).

    MsgBox date1 & "," & date2    'Prints two dates that are the same.
  End Sub

Variant Comparisons

When comparing variants, the actual operation performed is determined at execution time according to the following table:

If one
variant is

and the other
variant is

Then

Numeric

Numeric

The variants are compared as numbers.

String

String

The variants are compared as text.

Numeric

String

The number is less than the string.

Null

Any other data type

Null

Numeric

Empty

The number is compared with 0.

String

Empty

The string is compared with a zero-length string.

Example

Sub Main()

  'Tests two literals and displays the result.
  If 5 < 2 Then
    MsgBox "5 is less than 2."
  Else
    MsgBox "5 is not less than 2."
  End If

  'Tests two strings and displays the result.

  If "This" < "That" Then
    MsgBox "'This' is less than 'That'."
  Else
    MsgBox "'That' is less than 'This'."
  End If
End Sub

See Also

Operator Precedence (topic); Is (operator); Like (operator); Option Compare (statement).

C