How to output exact character string "<?php"

Question

I'm new to php, I have not been able to figure out how to output the exact string "<?php" as either an HTML string, outputing from a file (i.e. file_get_contents(blah);), or with echo "<?php"; inside a code segment. I assume it is getting interpreted as the opening of a php code segment because no data is output. Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

More likely it's interpreted as an HTML tag, use

header("Content-type: text/plain");

Or replace the < with <.

Answer 2

Should work fine:

<?php

print "<?php";