Binary

Default comparison. Binary results in string comparisons based on a sort order derived from the internal binary representations of the characters. In Microsoft Windows, sort order is determined by the code page. A typical binary sort order is shown in the following example:

A < B < E < Z < a < b < e < z < À < Ê < Ø < à < ê < ø

Text

Text results in string comparisons based on a case-insensitive text sort order determined by your system's locale. When the same characters are sorted using Option Compare Text, the following text sort order is produced:

(A=a) < ( À=à) < (B=b) < (E=e) < (Ê=ê) < (Z=z) < (Ø=ø)

Database

Database results in comparisons like those using Option Compare Text, but with Null values converted to appropriate default values. Specifically null values are compared to strings as if they were the empty string "", numbers as if they were 0, booleans as if they were False, and dates as if they were #31/12/1899#.