Admit it, back in the old days when real people answered the phone, you often thought...I bet this operator is hot. Maybe you even flirted a little. Perhaps you even went as far as to try to make a date with the operator, and when she said she didn't know you, you took that as a sign that you should call her back every hour until she did know you. Nice try; you'll be glad to hear then that working with relational operators is quite different from trying to get a date from an operator.

Relational operators compare data to one another. Below is a hot list of relational operators and what they do:

Relational operators will come in handy when we take a look at Conditionals and Loops. For now, here is a sampling of what that relationals look like in code:

class FlexOff {

public static void man(String[] args) {

int my_muscles = 10;

int your_muscles = 1;

if(my_muscles > your_muscles) System.out.println(“My muscles are larger than yours!”);

if(my_muscles < your_muscles) System.out.println(You must be taking steroids.”);

  }

 }

In the above code, we have to value: my_muscles and your_muscles. Each is assigned a numeric value from 1 to 10, with 10 being the greatest. We then have an If-statement (we will go over these in another tutorial) that states if my_muscles are greater than your_muscles, do this. In the above sample,  my_muscles are indeed greater than your_muscles (by a factor of ten no less; I'm practically Hercules) and so the program will print out:

  My muscles are larger than yours!

Had your muscles been bigger than mine, two things would have occurred: 1) Hell would have frozen over and 2) the following text would be written to the screen:

  You must be taking steroids.

Now let's imagine that you were stronger than me. When I had you called up for review by the Steroid Usage is a No No Board, they would ask you, Yes or No, True or False...have you used steroids?

And with that little segue, it's time to introduce you to the Boolean Logical Operators.

Unfortunately for you however, we have run out of time for this tutorial. But never fear; in our next tutorial we will cover the rest of the operators and delve into Statements.

Until then however, feel free to study this table of our remaining Operators:

Till next time (plays Batman theme song). POW! BLAM! BIFF! BOP!