How to create an empty container and render it

Question

I want to create an empty container and get it rendered. Currently my empty container isn't showing up.

<container name="empty-container" htmlTag="div" htmlClass="my-class"/>

Answer 1

An empty container can be forced to render by including a text block.

<!-- Force container to render -->
<block class="Magento\Framework\View\Element\Text">
    <arguments>
        <argument name="text" xsi:type="string"><![CDATA[&nbsp;]]></argument>
    </arguments>
</block>

Thanks to https://gist.github.com/Quinten/47ed93666001938b988d

Answer 2

Add this empty block to container.

<block class="Magento\Framework\View\Element\Text" name="empty-block">
    <action method="setText">
        <argument name="text" xsi:type="string"><![CDATA[&nbsp;]]></argument>
    </action>
</block>