compare items in list to x

[Matt Herzog]

I want a program that loops over a list of numbers (y) and tells me whether each number in the list is less than, greater than or equal to another number (x).

In the below code, I can't get python to see that 2 is equal to 2. 

x = 2

def compare():

    for y in ['12', '33', '2']:

        if x < y:
            print x, "is less than", y

        elif x > y:
            print x, "is greater than", y

        else:
            print x, "and", y, "are equal"


compare()

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