What do < and > stand for?

I know that the entities &lt; and &gt; are used for < and >, but I am curious what these names stand for.

Does &lt; stand for something like "Left tag" or is it just a code?

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10 Answers

  • &lt; stands for the less-than sign: <
  • &gt; stands for the greater-than sign: >
  • &le; stands for the less-than or equals sign:
  • &ge; stands for the greater-than or equals sign:
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&lt; Less than: <

&gt; Greater than: >

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They're used to explicitly define less than and greater than symbols. If one wanted to type out <html> and not have it be a tag in the HTML, one would use them. An alternate way is to wrap the <code> element around code to not run into that.

They can also be used to present mathematical operators.

<!ENTITY lt CDATA "&#60;" -- less-than sign, U+003C ISOnum --> <!ENTITY gt CDATA "&#62;" -- greater-than sign, U+003E ISOnum --> 

What do < and > stand for?

  • &lt; stands for the < sign. Just remember: lt == less than
  • &gt; stands for the > Just remember: gt == greater than

Why do we need it?

  • This is because the > and < characters are ‘reserved’ characters in HTML.
  • HTML is a mark up language: The < and > are used to denote the starting and ending of different elements: e.g. <h1> and not for the displaying of the greater than or less than symbols. But what if you wanted to actually display those symbols? You would simply use &lt; and &gt; and the browser will know exactly how to display it.

Reference:

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&lt; == lesser-than == < &gt; == greater-than == > 

&lt = less than <, &gt = greater than >

&gt; and &lt; is a character entity reference for the > and < character in HTML.

It is not possible to use the less than (<) or greater than (>) signs in your file, because the browser will mix them with tags.

for these difficulties you can use entity names(&gt;) and entity numbers(&#60;).

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&lt; stands for lesser than (<) symbol and, the &gt; sign stands for greater than (>) symbol.

For more information on HTML Entities, visit this link:

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In HTML, the less-than sign is used at the beginning of tags. if you use this bracket "<test1>" in content, your bracket content will be unvisible, html renderer is assuming it as a html tag, changing chars with it's ASCI numbers prevents the issue.

with html friendly name:

 &lt;test1&gt; 

or with asci number:

 &#60;test1&#62; 

or comple asci:

&#60;&#116;&#101;&#115;&#116;&#49;&#62; 

result: <test1>

asci referance:

in :

&lt= this is <= =&gt this is => 
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