the “<” are from the “diff” command showing that those lines are in his version of the file but not in the original. Basically he added at line 150:
$orig_text = $text;
which saves the original text
and then starting at line 155 he inserted:
if (is_string($orig_text) && is_string($text) &&
(strlen(trim($orig_text)) == strlen($text))) {
return $orig_text;
}
So if the original text and the modified text are the same length, just return. Otherwise it continues on to the next line which is the one that adds the “Read More” link.