[R] Selecting from a character vector with logical operators

[Robert Brown FM CEFAS]

I'm trying to select a subset from character vector using the logical operator >, but get the following error 

6356     85     SOL   1     25     1   38E6
6357     85     SOL   1     27     1   38E6
6910     95     SOL   1     25     1   38E6
7152     98     SOL   1     19     1   38E6
7153     98     SOL   1     22     2   38E6
7154     98     SOL   1     28     1   38E6
> ca11c93SOL1VIIa<-ca11c93SOL1[ca11c93SOL1$RECTAN>"32Z9",]
Warning message: 
">" not meaningful for factors in: Ops.factor(ca11c93SOL1$RECTAN, "32Z9") 

(note RECTAN is the name assigned to the 7 th column)

Do these operators act on chacters vectors as opposed to numeric vectors and if so what are the rules for this?

Regards,

Robert Brown