How to stop an html TEXTAREA from decoding html entities

Question

I have a strange problem:

In the database, I have a literal ampersand lt semicolon:

<div  

whenever its printed into a html

Answer 1

I had the same problem and I just made two replacements on the text to show from the database before letting it into the text area:

myString = Replace(myString, "&", "&")
myString = Replace(myString, "<", "<")

Replace n:o 1 to trick the textarea to show the codes. replace n:o 2: Without this replacement you can not show the word "" inside the textarea (it would end the textarea tag).

(Asp / vbscript code above, translate to a replace method of your language choice)