How does python compare strings via the inequality operators?
a = "cat"
b = "dog"
a < b
True
What properties of the strings results in a < b == True?
I've tried few other examples but still have no idea how Python compares them. Does Python compares strings like integers?
Because python compares sequences (i.e. strings you have) sequentially by element values. "c" comes before "d" in Unicode, hence the result.
To compare length, use
len(a) == len(b)
The motivation behind this – having sequential comparison of elements, you can sort sequences in sane way. I.e. sorting list of names alphabetically is just sorted(names_list). And this works exactly because strings will be compared alphabetically and sequentially.
