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The spaceship operator is a binary equality operator unique to the Perl programming language. Notationally, it is written <=> . Unlike traditional equality operators, which will return 1 or 0 depending on whether the arguments are equal or unequal, the spaceship operator will return 1, 0, or -1 depending on the value of the left argument relative to the right argument. If the left argument is greater than the right argument, the operator returns 1. If the left argument is less than the right argument, the operator returns -1. If the two arguments are equal, the operator returns 0.

The spaceship operator is primarily used for comparisons in sorting. It is usable for a stable sort as it will return 0 for equal arguments.

The name spaceship operator takes its name because it looks like a small flying saucer as ASCII art. The term is now commonly used and the operator is referred by the name within the actual perldocs.

Example

$a = 5 <=> 7; # $a is set to -1

$a = 7 <=> 5; # $a is set to 1

$a = 6 <=> 6; # $a is set to 0

External Links

Reference to the properties of the operator within perldoc

Reference to the actual term within perldoc

• Perl