C++ In a Nutshell

Name

operator< function template — Compares strings for less-than

Synopsis

template<class charT, class traits, class Allocator>
  bool operator<(
    const basic_string<charT,traits,Allocator>& a,
    const basic_string<charT,traits,Allocator>& b);
// bool operator<(const string& a, const string& b);
template<class charT, class traits, class Allocator>
  bool operator<(const charT* a, const basic_string<charT,traits,Allocator>& b);
// bool operator<(const char* a, const string& b);
template<class charT, class traits, class Allocator>
  bool operator<(const basic_string<charT,traits,Allocator>& a, const charT* b);
// bool operator<(const string& a, conat char* b);

The < operator compares two strings or compares a string and a null-terminated character array. It returns a.compare(b) < 0, converting a or b from a character array to a string, as needed.

See Also

basic_string class template