help with displaying

[mailtome]

Hi
I want to display whatever the user has input as it is.
For eg:
<?php
$a="&lt;";
echo $a;
?>
should output &lt; and not <
<?php
$a="<?php?>";
echo $a;
?>
should output <?php?>

How to achieve this??

[zhabala]

http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.htmlentities.php