Comparing Strings in C++
The relational operators <, <=, >, >= test whether one string is less than, less than or equal, greater than, or greater than or equal to another:
Example
#include <iostream> using namespace std; // system namespace int main() { string big = "big", small = "small"; string s1 = big; // s1 is a copy of big if (big == small) // false cout<<"Both are equal"; if (big <= s1) // true, they're equal, so big is less than or equal to s1 cout<<"big is smaller than small"; getchar(); return 0; }
Example
big is smaller than small
The relational operators compare strings using the same strategy as in a (case-sensitive) dictionary:
- If two strings have different lengths and if every character in the shorter string is equal to the corresponding character of the longer string, then the shorter string is less than the longer one.
- If the characters in two strings differ, then we compare them by comparing the first character at which the strings differ.