in reply to What is a stringwise operator?

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.

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Re^2: What is a stringwise operator?
by ikegami (Patriarch) on Feb 25, 2008 at 07:25 UTC

    So that 'A' is less than 'B', both of which are less than 'a'.

    ...unless use locale is in effect.

[reply]
[d/l]

      Erm, yes. Which is why I parenthetically remarked:

      (or possibly other character set order depending on the locale)

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

[reply]

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