I have the following html tag (which is custom):

<meltdown-code data-lang="HTML">
    <span><br>
        <p>Hi</p><br>
    </span><br>
</meltdown-code>

Simple enough. Now, I'm trying to make the HTML tags show as plain text, instead of being rendered as a separate element. To do that, I am replacing all the < with <, and all the > with >

tagHTML.replace(/</g, '&lt;')

The problem: This also replaces the <br> tags, which doesn't create a new line. Here is the solution, in a perfect world:

tagHTML.replace(/</g, '&lt;', {exceptions: '<br>'})

Obviously, that's not how it works. Any help is appreciated.

Thanks!