Compare

Compares two values and returns -1 if the first is smaller, 0 if equal, and 1 if larger. Both arguments must be the same type.

Category: Math Returns: int

Signature

Compare(a, b)

The runtime requires both arguments to be the same type. There is no implicit widening. This makes it the escape hatch for ordering bools (false < true) and comparing strings by ordinal position, since the <, <=, >, >= operators only work with numbers.

Overloads

Args	Returns	Notes
`(int, int)`	`int`	Integer comparison.
`(decimal, decimal)`	`int`	Decimal comparison.
`(number, number)`	`int`	Numeric fallback when types can’t be statically resolved.
`(string, string)`	`int`	Ordinal, case-insensitive string comparison (same rule the `==` operator uses).
`(bool, bool)`	`int`	`false` < `true`.

Examples

Compare(a, b) < 0               // a is less than b
Compare(tagA, tagB) > 0         // string ordering: which tag sorts first
Compare(isVIP, isVIP2)          // bool ordering: false < true
Compare(score1, score2)         // rank two scores for sorting

Notes

Compare is the only way to order non-numeric types, since <, <=, >, and >= only accept numbers. Use it to gate logic on string or bool ordering. String comparison is case-insensitive, so Compare("Apple", "apple") returns 0. Mixing types (comparing a string to a number, for example) is an error: both arguments must be the same type.