I recently ran into the following code snippet:

if ($releasedate lt '20070305') {
...
}

[download]

In seeking to understand why the original coder used the lt operator instead of the < operator I went to perlop and found this: 
Binary "lt" returns true if the left argument is stringwise less than 
+the right argument.

[download]

What does that mean? I can't find information explaining what "stringwise" means on perlmonks Super Search or google. Specifically, how is a string less than another string? Why would the original coder choose that operator over the numeric one?

Thanks.

Robert Browning on being asked what some line in one of his poems meant said
'When I wrote it only God and Robert Browning knew. Now only God knows.'

In reply to What is a stringwise operator? by blahblah

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