entities inside form elements

From: Jan Meyer <Aerosoftware@makeithappen.com> Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 18:24:06 -0800 Message-Id: <2.2.32.20020117022406.0096f50c@makeithappen.com> To: www-html@w3.org · This archive was generated by hypermail 2.2.0+W3C-0.50 : Monday, 6 April 2009 12:59:15 GMT

This url
http://makeithappen.com/temp/o.html
has this snippet
<html>
<Body>
<form>
<textarea>
&lt; &gt; &amp;
</textarea>
<P>
<input type=text value="&lt; &gt; &amp;">
</form>
</Body>
</html>

How do I get the textarea and text controls to display
&lt; &gt; &amp; instead of < > & ???

The data from the controls is saved in a DB. The entities get replaced.
Then when I generate HTML files from the data I get invalid HTML.

I find this to be a quirky way HTML works. The same textarea may also have
tables, but that is displayed as <table>....</table>, not as the table as
rendered by a browser.

Jan Meyer

http://www.ParachuteHistory.com
http://www.MakeItHappen.com
http://www.DiveMaker.com
Aerosoftware@MakeItHappen.com