In some situations, you might want to force a numeric comparison. The XPath processor performs a numeric comparison if either operand is numeric and neither is Boolean. (If one operand is Boolean, the XPath processor converts the other to Boolean and performs a Boolean comparison.) However, if neither operand is a numeric or Boolean value, you can call the number() function on one operand to convert it to a numeric value. The XPath processor automatically converts the other operand to a numeric value.