# Nits to pick on help page, and question

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nits-to-pick-on-help-page-and-question/66121>\
**Category:** About This Message Board\
**Created:** [May 21, 2001, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nits-to-pick-on-help-page-and-question/66121 "2001-05-21T20:56:45Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![sford](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/edb3f5/32.png) [@sford](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sford)\
**Post date:** [May 21, 2001, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nits-to-pick-on-help-page-and-question/66121/1 "2001-05-21T20:56:45Z")

</div>

OK, OK, I admit it, I’m anal retentive. (Except when it comes to spelling. 😉 I looked at the “vB code” help page ([http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/index.php?action=bbcode](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/index.php?action=bbcode)) and I have a couple nits to pick, folowed by an actual question.

**Nit #1:**

Third sentance of first paragraph:

> [@](#):
>
> You can use vB Codes even only if the administrator has specified…

I think you want to omit the word “even”.  
**Nit #2:**

```auto

#!/usr/bin/perl
print "Content-type: text/html";
print "Hello World!";

```

Come on now! Anybody who knows enough to do the “#!” line should also know that the program won’t produce the desired results! Change it to:

```auto

#!/usr/bin/perl
print "Content-type: text/plain

";
print "Hello World!
";

```

**Actual Question:**

I just did a “Preview Reply” and saw that the vb codes in the above code fragments were interpreted … i.e. the control words in square brackets were removed and the appropriate HTML was inserted in its place. This is obviously the appropriate thing for the bbs software to do.

My question is, what if I actually want the control to appear in my post un-molested? In HTML, I would escape out the less-than and greater-than signs:  
\<CODE\>

Is there a way of doing the same thing in vB? Alternatively, is there a way of disabling vB in a post? I guess one work-around would be to include spaces:  
[CODE]#!/usr/bin/perl  
print "Content-type: text/ugly

";  
[/CODE]

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![hawthorne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@hawthorne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawthorne)\
**Post date:** [May 22, 2001, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nits-to-pick-on-help-page-and-question/66121/2 "2001-05-22T16:00:21Z")

</div>

You can insert extra tags to get [c\*\*\*\*ode]various things[/\*\*\*\*code] to show up without working. Click “reply with quote” at the bottom of my post to see what I typed.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![sford](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/edb3f5/32.png) [@sford](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sford)\
**Post date:** [May 22, 2001, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nits-to-pick-on-help-page-and-question/66121/3 "2001-05-22T16:17:45Z")

</div>

> [@](#):
>
> _Originally posted by picmr \*  
> \*\*You can insert extra tags to get [c_\*\*\*ode]various things[/\*\*\*\*code] to show up without working. Click “reply with quote” at the bottom of my post to see what I typed. \*\*

Heh. Cute. [**b]ugly[**/b], but cute.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![demanton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@demanton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/demanton)\
**Post date:** [May 22, 2001, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nits-to-pick-on-help-page-and-question/66121/4 "2001-05-22T23:50:42Z")

</div>

> [@](#):
>
> _Originally posted by picmr \*  
> \*\*You can insert extra tags to get [c_\*\*\*ode]various things[/\*\*\*\*code] to show up without working. Click “reply with quote” at the bottom of my post to see what I typed. \*\*

This is a practice reply, go about your business.