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I could not find any info on converting and comparing to avoid type confusion. Is there a way to guarentee that comparisons are of a given type?

For example, I am looking for something like:

  ...WHERE NUMBER(A) > NUMBER(B)

  ...ORDER BY NUMBER(X), STRING(Y)

In other words, how does one guarentee that comparisons are being interpreted as the needed or expected type? (This is assuming I don't want to pre-declare column types)