STRING1 < STRING2 (conditional operator)

true if string1 sorts before string2 lexicographically.

< is not included in POSIX. Avoid it if you want to stay compatible with POSIX shells.

Integers are compared with -lt.

Bash

This operator uses the current locale for sorting within a [[ ... ]] construct.

Examples

Different ways to test if a string is sorted before another one:
1
2
3
4
test "$input" < " " && echo "special char"
[ "$input" < " " ] && echo "special char"
# Bash
[[ "$input" < " " ]] && echo "special char"
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