HOWTO
MARKDOWN
INSERT A BLANK LINE INSIDE A CODE BLOCK

Published: 20200929
Updated: 20210105

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You want to do a blank line in markdown, like this:

abc
 
123

What's the secret? well, here's a markdown-with-blank-line.md
You'll see that there's a weird char in there.

That's UNICODE Non-breaking space, aka U+00A0

Method 1
You can copy/extract it from the markdown file...

Method 2
You can insert it in vim, like this:
While in insert mode, press: Ctrl+V x a 0

Method 3
This may work (it worked when I tested it in Linux):
Press down: Ctrl + Shift + U
While pressing down, also press: 0 0 A 0
Release all keys.

Method 4
This may also work (tested in Linux):
Press: Ctrl + Shift + U
Release all keys.
Press: 0 0 A 0 Enter

Voila, you have now inserted the weird character.
It will give you a blank line inside a markdown code block.

Not all markdown parsers and dialects are created equal... This article is intended for the markdown variants and dialects where it can be hard to insert a blank line inside a code block.