{{for | the use of the ">" sign as punctuation | Bracket#Uses of "<" and ">"}}

{{lead missing|date=October 2012}}

==Computing==

The '''greater-than sign''' (<TT>&gt;</TT>) is an original [[ASCII]] character (hex 3E, decimal 62).

===Angle brackets===

The greater-than sign is used for an approximation of the closing [[Bracket|angle bracket]] (⟩). ASCII does not have (angular brackets).

===Programming language===

[[BASIC]] and [[C (programming language)|C]]-family languages, (including [[Java (programming language)|Java]] and [[C++]]) use the operator <TT>&gt;</TT> to mean "greater than". In [[Lisp (programming language)|Lisp]]-family languages, <TT>&gt;</TT> is a function used to mean "greater than".

In [[Coldfusion]] and [[Fortran]], operator <TT>.GT.</TT> means "greater than". It basically means this sign > is greater than and this sign < is less than.

===Double greater-than sign===

The double greater-than sign (<TT>&gt;&gt;</TT>) is used for an approximation of the [[much greater than]] sign (≫). ASCII does not have the much greater-than sign.

The double greater-than sign (<TT>&gt;&gt;</TT>) is also used for an approximation of the closing [[Guillemets|guillemet]] (»). ASCII does not have guillemets.

In [[Java (programming language)|Java]], [[C (programming language)|C]], and [[C++]], the operator <TT>&gt;&gt;</TT> is the [[right-shift operator]]. In C++ it is also used to get input from a [[Stream (computing)|stream]], similar to the C functions <TT>getchar</TT> and <TT>fgets</TT>.

===Greater-than sign plus equals sign===

The greater-than sign plus the equals sign (<TT>&gt;=</TT>) is used for an approximation of the [[greater than or equal to]] sign (≥). ASCII does not have greater-than-or-equal-to sign.

In [[BASIC]], [[Lisp (programming language)|Lisp]]-family languages, and [[C (programming language)|C]]-family languages (including [[Java (programming language)|Java]] and [[C++]]), operator <TT>&gt;=</TT> means "greater than or equal to".

In [[Fortran]], operator <TT>.GE.</TT> means "greater than or equal to".

Example: 5 > 2 means 5 is greater than 2. 6 < 9 means 6 is less than 9.

===Shell scripts===

In [[Bourne shell]] (and many other shells), greater-than sign is used to [[Redirection (Unix)|redirect]] output to a file. Greater-than plus ampersand (<TT>&gt;&amp;</TT>) is used to redirect to a [[file descriptor]].

===Spaceship operator===

Greater-than sign is used in the [[spaceship operator]].

===HTML===

In [[HTML]] (and [[SGML]] and [[XML]]), the greater-than sign is used at the end of tags. The greater-than sign may be included with <TT>&amp;gt;</TT>.

===Electronic mail===

The greater-than sign is used to denote [[quotation]]s in the [[e-mail]] and [[newsgroup]] formats, and this has been taken into use also in forums.

==See also==

* [[Inequality (mathematics)]]

* [[Less-than sign]]

* [[Relational operator]]

* [[Much-greater-than sign]]

* [[Guillemet]]

* [[Implication]]

[[Category:Typographical symbols]]

[[cs:Větší než]]

[[da:Større end-tegn]]

[[sv:Större än-tecken]]