How to print < and > symbols which are part of text..? - xslt

Question

I just can't figure out a way to output string something like :
<xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8">
this is what i tried:
<xsl:variable name="lessThan" select="<"/>
<xsl:variable name="GreaterThan" select=">"/>
<xsl:value-of select="$lessThan"/>
<xsl:text>xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"</xsl:text>
<xsl:value-of select="$GreaterThan"/>
but this is the output i'm getting:
<xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8">
I also tried doin something like this:
<xsl:text><xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"></xsl:text>
but the editor simply doesn't let me do this.It throws an error to match with end tag
PS:I am not well versed in xslt so Do please reply even if the question sounds naive.

Answer 1

try this:
<xsl:text disable-output-escaping="yes"><xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"></xsl:text>

Answer 2

To make your test xslt working you can use disable-output-escaping = "yes"
Changed xlst:
<xsl:variable name="lessThan" select="'<'"/>
<xsl:variable name="GreaterThan" select="'>'"/>
<xsl:value-of disable-output-escaping = "yes" select="$lessThan"/>
<xsl:text>xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"</xsl:text>
<xsl:value-of disable-output-escaping = "yes" select="$GreaterThan"/>
Update:
Only a guess you try to generate a xml declaration.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
This should be done with xsl:output
<xsl:output method="xml" encoding="utf-8"/>

Answer 3

You should not be trying to produce the XML declaration manually. It should be generated automatically by the XSLT as long as you specify the output method as XML and do not specify omit-xml-declaration="yes":
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output method="xml" indent="yes" encoding="utf-8" />
<xsl:template match="/">
<root />
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
When this XSLT is run on any input, the result is:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<root />

Answer 4

Put this <xsl:text disable-output-escaping="yes"><</xsl:text>