APEX

I have data values that contains a string such as <AR>, not an HTML tag but the <> characters are there. It is a visual cue the user added in a free format column.

When contained in a report region, an HTML table, the browser won't display that piece of the column value.

By brute force, I replaced the < with &amp;lt; and > with &amp;gt; on the source query. I was also replacing & and ". However, I found that a search for these characters specifically, the &lt;span&gt; tag (added by HTML DB) to highlight the character can interfere with the display.

What is a better solution so the HTML DB can correctly display these HTML like characters with or without the span tag?

Thanks,
Kelly