Operator Methods

>>-comparison_operator(argument)-------------------------------><

Returns 1 (true) or 0 (false), the result of performing a specified comparison operation.

For the Object class, if [argument] is the same object as the receiver object, the result is 1 (true), otherwise 0 (false) is returned. Subclasses may override this method to define equality using different criteria. For example, the String class determines equality based on the value of the string data.

Note

The MapCollection classes such as Table and Relation use the == operator combined with the hashCode method () to determine index and item equivalence. It is generally necessary for a class to override both the hashCode method and the == operator method to maintain the contract specified for the hashCode method. See for details on the contract.

The comparison operators you can use in a message are: