Closes #1323: Fix emitting empty `<ul>` tags in the HTML writer, which is not valid HTML.

CHANGES

@@ -119,6 +119,9 @@ Bugs fixed
 * #1330: Fix :confval:`exclude_patterns` behavior with subdirectories in the
   :confval:`html_static_path`.
 
+* #1323: Fix emitting empty ``<ul>`` tags in the HTML writer, which is not
+  valid HTML.
+
 Documentation
 -------------
 

sphinx/writers/html.py

@@ -240,6 +240,12 @@ class HTMLTranslator(BaseTranslator):
                 self.body.append('.'.join(map(str, numbers)) +
                                  self.secnumber_suffix)
 
+    # overwritten to avoid emitting empty <ul></ul>
+    def visit_bullet_list(self, node):
+        if len(node) == 1 and node[0].tagname == 'toctree':
+            raise nodes.SkipNode
+        BaseTranslator.visit_bullet_list(self, node)
+
     # overwritten
     def visit_title(self, node):
         BaseTranslator.visit_title(self, node)