Escape <?xml version="1.0" ?> tag from HTML

I am trying to embedded a XML inside开发者_JAVA技巧 a HTML page with hidden div and using it latter to populate UI fields.

The problem is, I can't parse it since tag is missing.

How can I escape the entire tag?

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Why not add that tag and then parse it?

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I would be better to put the content inside a hidden textarea, to keep your HTML markup correct.

Either way, you should be able to escape it by changing < to < and > to >.

(This should be done to the all of the XML tags, not only the <?xml ?> tag.)