Ruby/String/String comparisons

"a" <=> "A" # => 1
"a".casecmp "A" # => 0

It compares the character code values of the strings, 
returning -1 (less than), 
          0 (equals), or 
          1 (greater than), depending on the comparison, which is case-sensitive
"a" <=> "a" # => 0
"a" <=> 97.chr # => 0
"a" <=> "b" # => -1
"a" <=> """ # => 1

You can do that with the == method. 
 
print "What was the question again?" if question == ""

string = "This is a 30-character string."
if string =~ /([0-9]+)-character/ and $1.to_i == string.length
  "Yes, there are #$1 characters in that string."
end

puts "x" > "y"
puts "y" > "x"

string = "This is a test"
if string =~ /[a-z]/
  puts "string contains lowercase characters"
end

string = "This is a test"
if string =~ /[A-Z]/ and string =~ /[a-z]/
  puts "string contains mixed case"
end

string = "this is a test"
if string =~ /[A-Z]/
  puts "string contains uppercase characters"
end

string = "This is a test"
if string[0..0] =~ /[A-Z]/
  puts "string starts with a capital letter"
end

letters = "abcde"
puts letters =~ /a/
puts letters =~ /b/
puts letters =~ /e/
puts letters =~ /x/
letters = "abcde"
puts letters =~ /aa?/
puts letters =~ /ax?/
letters = "abcde"
puts letters =~ /ab?/
puts letters =~ /bc?/
puts letters =~ /b?/