html - Are empty divs bad?

Question

I'm making a website in Aptana and i'm using an empty div element for the styling of a border-bottom.

I couldn't make it part of the element it's a border of because it needs to have the same width all the time and that supposed parent element in fact changes size depending on the content.

Question being: Is it bad to use empty divs like this? Aptana gives me a warning. It says i "should trim empty div".

I'm talking about the divs down here with the class "showinfo-border-left/right"

<div class="showinfo">
    <div class="showinfo-left">Text</div>
    <div class="showinfo-right">More text</div>
</div>
    <div class="showinfo-border-left"></div>
    <div class="showinfo-border-right"></div>

Answer 1

From the HTML5 spec:

3.2.8.2.8 Palpable content

As a general rule, elements whose content model allows any flow content or phrasing content should have at least one child node that is palpable content and that does not have the hidden attribute specified.

This requirement is not a hard requirement, however, as there are many cases where an element can be empty legitimately, for example when it is used as a placeholder which will later be filled in by a script, or when the element is part of a template and would on most pages be filled in but on some pages is not relevant.

So since divs allow flow content. empty divs are something generally to be avoided, but not invalid nor anything to get hung up about.