Newbie: How to convert "<" to "&lt;" ( encoding? )

[Eric]

> replace (str, old, new[, maxsplit]) -> string
Thanks Bjorn.  That DOES take care of the two examples I gave.  However, I
am trying to implement something that will handle all the encoding needed to
make a string "HTML friendly."  I'm sorry, there is a name for the kind of
encoding I am trying to do, but I don't know what that name is (HTML
encoding?).

Thanks,

Eric.