15.19.1 Numerical Comparison Operators <, <=, >, and >=

The type of each of the operands of a numerical comparison operator must be a primitive numeric type, or a compile-time error occurs. Binary numeric promotion is performed on the operands (§5.6.2). If the promoted type of the operands is int or long, then signed integer comparison is performed; if this promoted type is float or double, then floating-point comparison is performed.

The result of a floating-point comparison, as determined by the specification of the IEEE 754 standard, is:

• If either operand is NaN, then the result is false.
• All values other than NaN are ordered, with negative infinity less than all finite values, and positive infinity greater than all finite values.
• Positive zero and negative zero are considered equal. Therefore, -0.0<0.0 is false, for example, but -0.0<=0.0 is true. (Note, however, that the methods Math.min (§20.11.27, §20.11.28) and Math.max (§20.11.31, §20.11.32) treat negative zero as being strictly smaller than positive zero.)

Subject to these considerations for floating-point numbers, the following rules then hold for integer operands or for floating-point operands other than NaN:

• The value produced by the < operator is true if the value of the left-hand operand is less than the value of the right-hand operand, and otherwise is false.
• The value produced by the <= operator is true if the value of the left-hand operand is less than or equal to the value of the right-hand operand, and otherwise is false.
• The value produced by the > operator is true if the value of the left-hand operand is greater than the value of the right-hand operand, and otherwise is false.
• The value produced by the >= operator is true if the value of the left-hand operand is greater than or equal to the value of the right-hand operand, and otherwise is false.