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Rebol and Red have a notion of the ordinary equal? function (offered infix simply as =) as being a sort of "natural equality". Hence it is willing to compare 1 = 1.0 even though one is an integer and the other a float... and to compare strings and characters case-insensitively by default.

The strict-equal? function is case-sensitive, demands things be the same datatype, and is tied to == as infix. (There is also a strict-not-equal? function as !==.)

However, the other comparison operators don't seem to have a strict variant. How would one implement a strict-greater? or a strict-lesser-or-equal?, etc. with the primitives in the box?

Behavior would be, for instance:

>> strict-lesser? "A" "a"
== true
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  • In Rebol2 both lesser? "a" "A" and lesser? "A" "a" returns false. lesser? #"A" #"a" == true for char! values. – endo64 Mar 31 '15 at 08:22

1 Answers1

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As endo64 points out, strings are the stumbling block but since their components, characters, have the desired strict inequalities, the solution would seem to be to compare strings character by character ("lexicographically", if you wish). This goes for Rebol2, Rebol3 and Red alike.

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Rudolf W. Meijer
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