Relational Operations in a Programming Language

Overview of Relational Operations

Relational operations are used in programming languages to compare two values or expressions.
These operations return a Boolean value (True or False) based on the condition of the comparison.

Equality Operator (==): Checks if the values of two operands are equal or not. If yes, it returns True.
Not Equal Operator (!=): Checks if the values of two operands are equal or not. If the values are not equal, it returns True.
Greater than Operator (>): Checks if the value of left operand is greater than the value of right operand. If yes, it returns True.
Less than Operator (<): Checks if the value of left operand is less than the value of right operand. If yes, it returns True.
Greater than or equal to Operator (>=): Checks if the value of left operand is greater than or equal to the value of right operand. If yes, it returns True.
Less than or equal to Operator (<=): Checks if the value of left operand is less than or equal to the value of right operand. If yes, it returns True.

Relational operators are widely used in conditional statements, especially in loops and if statements.
They are essential for controlling the flow of execution in a program, allowing the program to react differently depending on the input.

Sorting algorithms rely heavily on relational operators to compare elements and decide their order.
Search algorithms use relational operators to locate a desired piece of data within a larger set.

Because these are Boolean operations, the output is always True or False.
The values or expressions being compared must be compatible types — for instance, you typically can’t directly compare a string and an integer.
However, some languages will automatically coerce types where possible, such as Python’s ability to compare integers and floats.