title: How to compare strings with Xpath 1.0?
body: <p>I am experiiencing an issue with the <code>&lt;</code> operator on strings in Xpath 1.0.  </p>
  
  <p>This simple Xpath expression</p>
  
  <pre><code>'A' &lt; 'B' (or the equivalent 'A' &amp;lt; 'B')
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>did not evaluate to true in my xslt run in libxslt (which is an XSLT 1.0 engine).</p>
  
  <p>I checked in XML Spy, which allows testing Xpath expressions in both 1.0 and 2.0, and sure enough, in Xpath 2.0 it evaluates to <code>true</code>, but in Xpath 1.0 it evaluates to <code>false</code>!</p>
  
  <p>Is this a bug in Xpath 1.0?</p>
  
  <p>What other expression should I use to compare two strings/characters for their alphabetical order? Note that the compare() function will not do, as this is an XSLT 2.0 function.</p>