I used backslash since I've seen this comment at http://blog.linuxacademy.com/linux/conditions-in-bash-scripting-if-statements/:
<quote>
The backslash before the angle bracket is there because the bracket needs to be escaped to be interpreted correctly.
</quote>
But on other website examples, it doesn't seem to be used....

Ok, with you example, I see that the lexographically comparaison is not sufficent.