title: Overpass-api comparison operators
body: <p>In the post  <a href="http://gis.19327.n8.nabble.com/Date-ranges-with-Overpass-API-td5886864.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">"Date ranges with Overpass API"</a> Roland Olbricht announced public beta for the next Overpass API release. I try to use the comparison operators "==", "&lt;", "&lt;=", ">", and ">=" to find nodes with tag population which is greater then or smaller then any number </p>
  
  <pre><code>node[population]
  (if:"population"&gt;5834)({{bbox}});
  (._;&gt;;);
  out; 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>unfortunately comparison operators seems not to work at all. I try function number()
      <code>node[population]
      (if:number("population")&gt;5834)({{bbox}});
      (._;&gt;;);
      out;</code></p>
  
  <p>One thing that works is code like this</p>
  
  <pre><code>node[population]
  (if:!is_number("population"))({{bbox}});
  (._;&gt;;);
  out; 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>therefore I have a question whether anyone had contact with the beta and these operators?</p>