Unexpected symbol near '<'

Question

I'm trying to code something in Lua where you must be exactly 12 years old to make it print "Welcome!". However, whenever I run this code, I get an error message saying

Unexpected symbol near '<'.

The error message says that this is on line 3. If possible, could anyone also point out the other potential errors in this code? My code looks as follows:

io.write ("Enter your age:")
    age = io.read()
if age == <12 then
    print ("O noes, you are too young!")
elseif age == >12 then
    print ("O noes, you are too old!")
else 
    print ("Welcome, son!")
end

Answer 1

You have Unnecessary =='s.

Change the code to:

io.write ("Enter your age:")
age = io.read()
if age < 12 then
    print ("O noes, you are too young!")
elseif age > 12 then
    print ("O noes, you are too old!")
else 
    print ("Welcome, son!")
end

When you are checking if a variable is greater than or less than another variable, you do not need ==.

Example: if (7 < 10) then if (9 > 3) then

---

This may also be helpful:

As this is your first Lua code, It may also be helpful to note that if you are checking if a variable is greater than or equal to (or less than or equal to) you would need to write it as if (5 >= 5) then or if (3 <= 3) then.

You only need == when you are ONLY checking if it is equal to the other variable.

Example: if (7 == 7) then