How to fix the 'pre' tag's issues with left angle brackets '<'?

Question

I hear this is a long-standing issue with the 'pre' tags — when you are displaying a code block inside <pre> tags, you need to escape all instances of < (left angle brackets).

Is there an automatic fix for this? — (I mean) so that I don't have to manually replace all instances of < with < in every post I make.

Answer 1

My Suggestion as an "Auto" fix of sorts, is a str_replace on the string your putting into your pre tag. Assuming of course your using PHP, but each language has its equivalent I suppose.

<pre>
<?php
  $str = $variable_of_stuff_going_into_pre;
  $str = str_replace('<', '&lt;', $str);
  $str = str_replace('>', '&gt;', $str);
  echo $str;
 ?>
 </pre>

That's kind of a simplified version of it. You can use arrays are your search/replace string as well.