Create the gh-pages branch if not existent

[Ciro Nunes]

if you just try to deploy without creating the branch first it will fail

Command failed: /bin/sh -c git checkout gh-pages
error: pathspec 'gh-pages' did not match any file(s) known to git.

Error: Command failed: /bin/sh -c git checkout gh-pages
error: pathspec 'gh-pages' did not match any file(s) known to git.

    at ChildProcess.exithandler (child_process.js:203:12)
    at emitTwo (events.js:87:13)
    at ChildProcess.emit (events.js:172:7)
    at maybeClose (internal/child_process.js:818:16)
    at Socket.<anonymous> (internal/child_process.js:319:11)
    at emitOne (events.js:77:13)
    at Socket.emit (events.js:169:7)
    at Pipe._onclose (net.js:469:12)

[Ilya Radchenko]

An easy step might be to check the failure, and print out the command they should run (it's in the readme).

[Ilya Radchenko]

@cironunes do you think that would be a good solution in the short term?

[Shahrukh Omar]

I get the same error even after creating the orphan branch. I haven't looked at the code in detail yet but the error tells me the command that checks out the orphan branch isn't correct i.e. instead of running:

git checkout gh-pages

it should be running:

git checkout --orphan gh-pages

Reference: https://git-scm.com/docs/git-checkout

Does this makes sense?

[Shahrukh Omar]

^ false alram,

I think it's rather:

git checkout --orphan gh-pages && rm -rf `bash -c "ls -a | grep -vE '\.gitignore|\.git|node_modules|bower_components|(^[.]{1,2}/?$)'"` && git add -A && git commit -m "initial gh-pages commit"

the rm -rf removes everything from the new orphan branch, so when you run git add -A there are no files to stage and subsequently nothing to commit which results in no gh-pages branch being created.

I got around the issue by leaving behind a .gitkeep

[Ilya Radchenko]

Good catch, think you can submit a PR?

[Shahrukh Omar]

Good catch, think you can submit a PR?

Sure, happy to leave a .gitkeep behind?

[Ilya Radchenko]

Yeah