$re = '/\n(?![^<]*<\/pre>)/m';
$str = '<p>Test contennt for regex
with line breaks</p>
<pre>code block
with multi line content
working fine</pre>
<pre class="brush:C#">
test line break before
open paranthesis < is not working fine
line breaks after paranthesis
is accepted
</pre>';
$subst = "";
$result = preg_replace($re, $subst, $str);
echo "The result of the substitution is ".$result;
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php