How to find empty lines around a container?

Question

PHP

Good afternoon!
Can you please tell me how to find the empty lines around the <pre> ... </pre> container and replace them with the <br> tag?
EXAMPLE: Before
:
Lorem Ipsum
Lorem Ipsum
Lorem Ipsum
<pre> Lorem Ipsum
Lorem Ipsum
Lorem Ipsum </pre>
Lorem Ipsum
Now:
Lorem Ipsum
<br>
Lorem Ipsum
<br>
Lorem Ipsum
<br>
<pre> Lorem Ipsum
Lorem Ipsum
Lorem Ipsum </pre>
<br>
Lorem Ipsum

Answer 1

Different variants:
preg_replace('/<\/pre>\n\n/ism', "</pre><br>")