< (Less Than) (Transact-SQL)
Applies to:
SQL Server
Azure SQL Database
Azure SQL Managed Instance
Azure Synapse Analytics
Analytics Platform System (PDW)
SQL analytics endpoint in Microsoft Fabric
Warehouse in Microsoft Fabric
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
Note
To view Transact-SQL syntax for SQL Server 2014 (12.x) and earlier versions, see Previous versions 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;
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)