The wiki cannot be cloned

[johnnyreilly]

It looks like the wiki cannot be cloned due to the What's new in TypeScript? page. This is what happens when you try:

C:\GitHub> git clone https://github.com/Microsoft/TypeScript.wiki.git
Cloning into 'TypeScript.wiki'...
remote: Counting objects: 351, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (9/9), done.
Receiving objects:  78% (274/351)   Total 351 (delta 3), reused 0 (delta 0)
Receiving objects: 100% (351/351), 94.14 KiB | 0 bytes/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (206/206), done.
Checking connectivity... done.
error: Invalid path 'What's-new-in-TypeScript?.md'

I'm guessing this could be resolved just by dropping the "?" character in the path...

[RyanCavanaugh]

Isn't this a github bug? Questions marks are otherwise legal in wiki titles.

[johnnyreilly]

Hi @RyanCavanaugh,

Could you clarify what you meant by a GitHub bug?

I thought it was a file path issue. Windows gets upset by What's-new-in-TypeScript?.md which is presumably a markdown filename. I know Windows doesn't dig "?" in file paths and that's why I figured I couldn't clone it.

My guess was you guys had only ever used the online tools to edit the wiki. I don't think any Windows users will be able to contribute to it unless What's-new-in-TypeScript?.md is renamed without the ?.

[johnnyreilly]

Just did a little reading that seems to confirm it:

https://help.github.com/articles/adding-and-editing-wiki-pages-locally/#creating-your-wiki-page-title

Warning: Don't use the following characters in your wiki page's titles: \ / : * ? " < > |
Users on certain operating systems won't be able to work with filenames containing these characters.

Any chance you guys could rename to drop the ?? (see what I did there 😄)

[RyanCavanaugh]

OK, fixed. Let me know if you see any other issues.

[johnnyreilly]

Thanks @RyanCavanaugh.

[johnnyreilly]

Hi @RyanCavanaugh,

I tried sending a PR with a tweak to the What's new page on the wiki but received a 403 as I don't have permission. I don't know if you can grant me permission?

Failing that you could do the amend yourself if you're happy with the suggested change. It's a minor tweak to the union types section. It includes an example of the syntax for including functions within union types.

I enclose the updated content below. I tried to keep this a very low impact change by amending the example already on the wiki. I'd be happy to split it out into a separate paragraph if that makes more sense:

Overview

Union types are a powerful way to express a value that can be one of several types. For example, you might have an API for running a program that takes a commandline as either a string, a string[] or a Function that returns a string. You can now write:

interface RunOptions {
   program: string;
   commandline: string[]|string|(() => string);
}

[RyanCavanaugh]

Looks like GitHub doesn't support wiki pull requests (:disappointed:). I manually merged in the change. Thanks!

[johnnyreilly]

Makes you wonder why they offer it! Thanks for merging

[danquirk]

Yeah I looked into this recently, there're some steps that can make it sorta possible but it's never as nice a Pull Request experience as the normal repo. Hopefully they add support eventually and we can make it easier for anyone to help edit the wiki.

[basarat]

Just sayin, #1514 (comment)

[DanielRosenwasser]

Alright, alright @basarat, I heard you the first time. 😃

[johnnyreilly]

Excellent work @DanielRosenwasser - cheers muchly 😉