Stringwise means comparing according to the ASCII value order (or possibly other character set order depending on the locale). So that 'A' is less than 'B', both of which are less than 'a'. Strictly speaking a string comparison wasn't necessary in this case because YYYYMMDD dates sort naturally when used as numbers, but they may have had some other reason (perhaps there's data "INVALID" which they want to sort as a date in the far future . . .).

The cake is a lie.
The cake is a lie.
The cake is a lie.

In reply to Re: What is a stringwise operator? by Fletch
in thread What is a stringwise operator? by blahblah

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