Rexx Programming/How to Rexx/string comparison

String comparisons are made based upon lexical string order
String operators make comparisons based upon the lexical string order. Strings listed first in lexical order have a lower comparative value than strings listed later.

Supported operators
The following example shows a string comparison being made using the comparative operators:

animal = 'dog' if animal > 'cat' then say animal "is lexically higher than cat"

The following comparative operators are supported:
= 	Equal To \= 	Not Equal To < 	Less Than > 	Greater Than <= 	Less Than or Equal To >= 	Greater Than or Equal To \< 	Not Less Than \> 	Not Greater Than <> 	Not Equal To >< 	Not Equal To

Conventional string comparative operators ignore leading and trailing whitespace
The conventional string comparison operators ignore leading and trailing whitespace when the comparison is made:

' ' = ''       /* 1 true,  string comparison  (stripped whitespace matches null value)  */ 'ABC' = ' ABC ' /* 1 true, string comparison  (leading and trailing whitespace ignored) */

Strict Comparison
The strict comparative operators do not ignore leading and trailing whitespace, which must also match when a strict comparison is made:

' ' == ''       /* 0 false,  strict comparison  (the spaces will not match the null value)  */ 'ABC' == ' ABC ' /* 0 false, strict comparison  (leading and trailing whitespace causes mismatch) *# /