Covert HTML symbols to ASCII

[Err]

Not really sure it is in fact ASCII or not. The problem is when I input a < (less than) sign into one of my inputs on my form and PHP displays it, it messes up the code on the page where it is displayed on. For example, I typed in "<dog" into one of my inputs, I press submit and PHP tries to display it. The problem is my code now looks like this: <p><b><dog</b> is not valid.</p> I get all sorts of validation errors. Anyone know how I can change certain HTML symbols like < > into < > and avoid any errors of this kind?

[zppblood]

Someone can insert XSS into it too, insert something like <script>alert('XSS')</script>.I prefer this one.Use htmlentities($input, ENT_QUOTES, 'whatever character set you want');http://us.php.net/manual/en/function.htmlentities.phpOr you can usehttp://us.php.net/manual/en/function.htmlspecialchars.php

[Err]

Thank you for your reply. This has helped me a lot. I should of checked the php site to begin with, lol.