less-than-transact-sql.md

description	< (Less Than) (Transact-SQL)
title	< (Less Than) (Transact-SQL) | Microsoft Docs
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ms.date	03/13/2017
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< (Less Than) (Transact-SQL)

[!INCLUDE sql-asdb-asdbmi-asa-pdw]

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).

Transact-SQL Syntax Conventions

Syntax

expression < expression  

[!INCLUDEsql-server-tsql-previous-offline-documentation]

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.

-- Uses AdventureWorks  
  
SELECT DepartmentID, Name  
FROM HumanResources.Department  
WHERE DepartmentID < 3  
ORDER BY DepartmentID;  
  

[!INCLUDEssResult]

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;  

[!INCLUDEssResult]

Result  
------  
FALSE  
  
(1 row(s) affected)  
  

See Also

IIF (Transact-SQL)
Data Types (Transact-SQL)
Operators (Transact-SQL)