XMP and LISTING

Preformatted text from before PRE settled the argument. Three tags for one job.

In 2026: Both still render in browsers as a courtesy. HTML 2.0 already deprecated both in favour of PRE, and HTML 3.2 declared them obsolete. LISTING was defined as 132 columns, XMP as 80. Use PRE.

Where it came from: HTML 2.0 (RFC 1866), 1995, which already told authors to use PRE instead. Declared obsolete in HTML 3.2, 1997. MDN ↗

<xmp>
  <b>Markup inside XMP is shown, not parsed.</b>
  No escaping needed.
</xmp>

<listing>
  Same idea, but the spec said render this at 132 characters wide.
</listing>

<!-- What survived -->
<pre>&lt;b&gt;PRE needs its angle brackets escaped.&lt;/b&gt;</pre>