Greater than or equal (>=)

The greater than or equal (>=) operator returns true if the left operand is greater than or equal to the right operand, and false otherwise.

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Syntax

x >= y

Description

The operands are compared using the same algorithm as the Less than operator, with the result negated. x >= y is generally equivalent to !(x < y), except for two cases where x >= y and x < y are both false:

  • If one of the operands gets converted to a BigInt, while the other gets converted to a string that cannot be converted to a BigInt value (it throws a syntax error when passed to BigInt()).
  • If one of the operands gets converted to NaN. (For example, strings that cannot be converted to numbers, or undefined.)

x >= y is generally equivalent to x > y || x == y, except for a few cases:

  • When one of x or y is null, and the other is something that's not null and becomes 0 when coerced to numeric (including 0, 0n, false, "", "0", new Date(0), etc.): x >= y is true, while x > y || x == y is false.
  • When one of x or y is undefined, and the other is one of null or undefined: x >= y is false, while x == y is true.
  • When x and y are the same object that becomes NaN after the first step of Less than (such as new Date(NaN)): x >= y is false, while x == y is true.
  • When x and y are different objects that become the same value after the first step of Less than: x >= y is true, while x > y || x == y is false.

Examples

String to string comparison

"a" >= "b"; // false
"a" >= "a"; // true
"a" >= "3"; // true

String to number comparison

"5" >= 3; // true
"3" >= 3; // true
"3" >= 5; // false

"hello" >= 5; // false
5 >= "hello"; // false

Number to Number comparison

5 >= 3; // true
3 >= 3; // true
3 >= 5; // false

Number to BigInt comparison

5n >= 3; // true
3 >= 3n; // true
3 >= 5n; // false

Comparing Boolean, null, undefined, NaN

true >= false; // true
true >= true; // true
false >= true; // false

true >= 0; // true
true >= 1; // true

null >= 0; // true
1 >= null; // true

undefined >= 3; // false
3 >= undefined; // false

3 >= NaN; // false
NaN >= 3; // false

Specifications

Specification
ECMAScript Language Specification
# sec-relational-operators

Browser compatibility

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See also