Display Html Entity Codes In Html

[HartleySan]

I have an HTML question. Wasn't sure where else to put it, so I'm posting it here.

 

Anyway, this might sound like a silly question, but I want to be able to literally display HTML entities on an HTML page. For example, I want to be able display < on an HTML page instead of <. Does anyone know how to do this?

 

Thank you.

[Stuart]

It's not something I've ever had to do but this works:

 

echo htmlspecialchars(htmlspecialchars('&'));

 

OR

 

echo htmlspecialchars('&');

 

There might be another way but like I said never had to do it before.

[HartleySan]

And what if I'm using just plain ol' HTML?

[Antonio Conte]

A little CSS-hacking perhaps?

 

HTML:
&<span class="hide">.</span>lt;

CSS:
span.hide {
  display: none;
  // possibly more code.
}

 

< will always be encoded to < by the browser I think. This method might work because it's split up by punctuation.

 

Not tested though

 

Edit:

 

If the text does not need to be markable by mouse/etc, you might just use a picture?

[HartleySan]

Hmmm...okay. Thanks for the ideas. I wonder if I could enter an HTML comment in between an entity code or something.

 

I scoured the Net, and could not find any definitive answer. I kept looking at the source code for sites using <, but it's not obvious.

 

Well, I'll keep looking. And if nothing else, Antonio's idea works.

[Antonio Conte]

I don't know but how about something like content: "<" in CSS? I don't know, but the only other thing I can think of.

 

http://htmldog.com/r...erties/content/

 

Btw. Html-comment is not a bad idea. Tried &<!--comment-->lt; ?

[HartleySan]

Thanks for that info. Actually, this all isn't really that big of a deal. Just surprised that there's no easy way to handle this in HTML.

[HartleySan]

Can't take credit for this idea, but I got a great suggestion from a friend: &lt;

 

I thought that was really clever. I think I'll go with that, unless someone has a better idea.

[Antonio Conte]

Best idea in my head by a mile. Seem "the right way" to do what you want. It'll also be correct without a stylesheet.

 

The only reason why I've given this some thought, is that I find it interesting myself. As with you, I couldn't see a good easy way to do this.

[HartleySan]

Well, no reason to bash yourself. I had to outsource the idea to a friend that's quite good at HTML/CSS.

 

So as you can see, I couldn't think of anything good either.