What is a critical characteristic of relational operators?

Relational operators are a fundamental element in programming and data manipulation used to compare two values and establish a relationship between them. These operators evaluate expressions to determine if they are true or false, often yielding a Boolean result. For example, in a GIS context, relational operators can be used to compare geographical attributes such as the population of two regions or the area of two parcels of land.

The ability to establish and express relationships, such as equality, greater than, or less than, allows users to perform operations like filtering data sets based on specific criteria. This functionality is crucial in a relational database environment, where the relationships between data points significantly influence data retrieval and analysis, particularly in GIS applications such as querying spatial data.

The other choices do not accurately describe the functionality of relational operators. They can compare various data types beyond just strings, do not always return numeric values, and are not limited to logical statements exclusively. Instead, they can work with numerical, string, or other data types, making them versatile in evaluating relationships across diverse scenarios.