<%= 23*457 %>

Understanding the <、> symbols and the <%= pattern

• In HTML and many template engines, < and > are reserved characters that delimit tags. To display them literally you must escape them as < and > – see the original Stack Overflow discussion for details stackoverflow.com.
• The pattern <%= … %> is specific to EJS/Jinja‑style templating languages: <% starts a scriptlet, while <%= outputs the result of the enclosed JavaScript/Expression directly into the rendered page thelinuxcode.com.

How the symbols are used

• < = less‑than sign, > = greater‑than sign. - In math they compare values: 3 < 5 is true, 7 > 2 is true. - In HTML they open and close elements: <p>Paragraph</p> – the browser interprets anything between them as a tag stack overflow discussion.

Why escaping is necessary

When a browser parses HTML it looks for < to start a tag. If you write a plain < inside normal text, the parser treats it as the beginning of a tag and discards the rest, making the character invisible. By using the entity references < and >, the raw characters are preserved and rendered correctly Stack Overflow answer. Operator‑precedence reminder - In many programming languages * and / have higher precedence than + and -.

• This rule also applies to comparison operators; for example * is evaluated before +.
• When mixing multiple operators, remember the precedence hierarchy or use parentheses to make the intended order explicit TheLinuxCode article.

Key take‑aways

• Use < and > to display < and > in HTML.
• In templating languages, <%= … %> prints the evaluated expression.
• Always keep operator‑precedence rules in mind when writing arithmetic or logical expressions, and use parentheses to eliminate ambiguity.

Illustrations

wikipedia.org

thelinuxcode.com

example.com

These images help visualise the concepts discussed above.