Setting a variable in any of the following ways and then printing it will show no value for the variable. Note that the string can start with any whitespace as well - e.g. '   <' will not work either. And setting to for example '   < blah' will still not work but setting to '   x < blah' will print 'x'. Is this expected behavior?! How do I set a string that includes the '<' character? Also, I thought strings quoted with single quotes were not parsed ?

 $fonts = array('heading' => 'FONT FACE="ARIAL,HELVETICA,SANS-SERIF" SIZE="3">',
                'column' => 'FONT FACE="ARIAL,HELVETICA,SANS-SERIF" SIZE="2">');
  $fonts['heading'] = '<' . 'FONT FACE="ARIAL,HELVETICA,SANS-SERIF" SIZE="3">';
  $fonts['column'] = "\<FONT FACE=\"ARIAL,HELVETICA,SANS-SERIF\" SIZE=\"2\">";
  $foo = '<FONT FACE="ARIAL,HELVETICA,SANS-SERIF" SIZE="3">';
echo "foo: $foo <BR>";
dumpList('fonts', $fonts);                  // this just prints the list.