Microsoft® Visual Basic® Scripting Edition
Comparison Operators
Language Reference

See Also


Description
Used to compare expressions.

Syntax

result = expression1 comparisonoperator expression2

result = object1 Is object2

Comparison operators have these parts:

Part Description
result Any numeric variable.
expression Any expression.
comparisonoperator Any comparison operator.
object Any object name.
string Any string expression.
pattern Any string expression or range of characters.

Remarks

The Is operator has specific comparison functionality that differs from the operators in the following table. The following table contains a list of the comparison operators and the conditions that determine whether result is True, False, or Null:

Operator Description True if False if Null if
< Less than expression1 < expression2 expression1 >= expression2 expression1 or expression2 = Null
<= Less than or equal to expression1 <= expression2 expression1 > expression2 expression1 or expression2 = Null
> Greater than expression1 > expression2 expression1 <= expression2 expression1 or expression2 = Null
>= Greater than or equal to expression1 >= expression2 expression1 < expression2 expression1 or expression2 = Null
= Equal to expression1 = expression2 expression1 <> expression2 expression1 or expression2 = Null
<> Not equal to expression1 <> expression2 expression1 = expression2 expression1 or expression2 = Null

When comparing two expressions, you may not be able to easily determine whether the expressions are being compared as numbers or as strings.

The following table shows how expressions are compared or what results from the comparison, depending on the underlying subtype:

If Then
Both expressions are numeric Perform a numeric comparison.
Both expressions are strings Perform a string comparison.
One expression is numeric and the other is a string The numeric expression is less than the string expression.
One expression is Empty and the other is numeric Perform a numeric comparison, using 0 as the Empty expression.
One expression is Empty and the other is a string Perform a string comparison, using a zero-length string as the Empty expression.
Both expressions are Empty The expressions are equal.


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