7. Character Data and Operators

7.3. Relational Operators

Given the lexical ordering of the char type, the following relational operators can be defined: <, >, <=, >=, ==, !=. Given any two characters, ch1 and ch2, the expression ch1 < ch2 is true if and only if the integer value of ch1 is less than the integer value of ch2. In this case we say that ch1 precedes ch2 in lexical order. Similarly, the expression ch1 > ch2 is true if and only if the integer value of ch1 is greater than the integer value of ch2. In this case we say that ch1 follows ch2. And so on for the other relational operators. This means that we can perform comparison operations on any two character operands (Table 5.14).

Table 5.14  Relational operations on characters

Operation Operator Java True Expression
Precedes < ch1 < ch2 'a' < 'b'
Follows > ch1 > ch2 'c' > 'a'
Precedes or equals <= ch1 <= ch2 'a' <= 'a'
Follows or equals >= ch2 >= ch1 'a' >= 'a'
Equal == ch1 == ch2 'a' == 'a'
Not equal to != ch1 != ch2 'a' != 'b'