Is there a way to include greater than or less than signs in an XML file?

Question

I have an XML file from a client that has greater than > and less than < signs in it and it fails an XML format check. Is there a way to get

Answer 1

The direct answer to your question:

Is there a way to get around this without asking the client to fix the file ?

is "no". The data you are getting is not valid XML, and you are correct in rejecting it. I highly recommend going back to the client and saying that they must provide valid XML, using Character Entity References as mentioned by David and Rahul.