Rest API xml sign < gives parsing error anytime you use it in the script code (4294307)

Example 2 which works:

def getMetricsFor(aInstance) {
         def metrics = []
         def windowStart = new Timestamp(startTime.getTime())
         def windowStop = new Timestamp(startTime.getTime()+step)
         while (endTime >windowStart) {
                   metrics.add(getMetricsFor(aInstance, windowStart, windowStop))
                   windowStart.setTime(windowStop.getTime())
                   windowStop.setTime(windowStop.getTime()+step)
         }
return metrics
}



Note: The body content input is not a valid XML -- some characters need to be escaped in XML and '