Well, there's always: 
    doc {
        br { ++$breaks; () }
    }

[download]
which pretty much says "empty" to me. But maybe it's better to document it out front. I wonder if something resembling: 
    doc {
        br {} (++$breaks)
    }

[download]
could be made to work with an additional parameter that is ignored.

In reply to Re^3: Simplifying the syntax further by TimToady
in thread Embedding a mini-language for XML construction into Perl by tmoertel

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