>Then why do you bother to replace all instances of a string with the exact same string, twice?

Ok, here is the what is should be: (I only added the top line)

lcCode = strtran(lcCode, '&', '&')
lcCode = strtran(lcCode, '<', '&lt;')
lcCode = strtran(lcCode, '>', '&gt;')

And as you can see (since this came from the program), all is good, thanks!