Bug when rendering "<" inside a <pre> tag

Question

If I want to write something like "low < high" in a <pre> or <pre><code> tag, the rendering shows only "low", plus some wrong new line afterwards:

# here we are in a pre/code tag
low 

But it works within back-ticks and with 4 spaces indentation low < high # here are backticks

low < hight  # here is indented

However "high > low" renders without problems, although the bug above keeps adding spurious new lines.

# here we are in a pre/code tag
hight > low

high > low # here are backticks

hight > low  # here is indented

I'm using version 49.0.2623.108 Ubuntu 15.10 (64-bit)

Answer 1

Since everything in a pre is HTML, you have to properly escape the <, else it thinks it is the start of a HTML tag.

This gives the desired result:

<pre><code>
# here we are in a pre/code tag
low &lt; high
</code></pre>

Result:

# here we are in a pre/code tag
low < high

Related feature request to change this behavior (the propsal in the feature request goes against the HTML standards, where I have to agree with Shog9): Can we have the pre tag work as the code tag does for angle brackets?

Answer 2

I tend to think that is status-bydesign and not a bug. How do you think the parser should distinguish between <pre>foo <code>, where you want the second < to be interpreted as start of an HTML tag, and <pre>low < high, where you want the second < to be escaped to <?

When using HTML directly, you are in advanced territory; you are expected to do your escapes yourself as needed.