< (Less Than) (Transact-SQL)
Compares two expressions (a comparison operator). When you compare nonnull expressions, the result is TRUE if the left operand has a value lower than the right operand; otherwise, the result is FALSE. If either or both operands are NULL, see the topic SET ANSI_NULLS (Transact-SQL).
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Transact-SQL Syntax Conventions
Syntax
expression < expression
Arguments
- expression
Is any valid expression. Both expressions must have implicitly convertible data types. The conversion depends on the rules of data type precedence.
Result Types
Boolean
Examples
A. Using < in a simple query
The following example returns all rows in the HumanResources.Department table that have a value in DepartmentID that is less than the value 3.
USE AdventureWorks2012;
GO
SELECT DepartmentID, Name
FROM HumanResources.Department
WHERE DepartmentID < 3
ORDER BY DepartmentID;
Here is the result set.
DepartmentID Name
------------ --------------------------------------------------
1 Engineering
2 Tool Design
(2 row(s) affected)
B. Using < to compare two variables
DECLARE @a int = 45, @b int = 40;
SELECT IIF ( @a < @b, 'TRUE', 'FALSE' ) AS Result;
Here is the result set.
Result
------
FALSE
(1 row(s) affected)