Autoproj package set for managing ROS2 workspaces

Contents of this repository was initiated and is currently developed at the Robotics Innovation Center of the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) in Bremen.

License

BSD Clause 3
- Copyright DFKI GmbH

Autoproj

Autoproj is a workspace management tool that provides the functionality of WStool/VCSTool and rosdep combined.

Autoproj seperates package and workspace definitions.

Package definitions are stored in a "package set", workspaces in a "buildconf" that is checked out into your workspace in a folder called "autoproj".

A package_set (this repository) allows to define available packages for the workspace, it has three main configuration files

• source.yml - Defines the location and type of the source to download (e.g. git, archive, ...) and can add automatically add patches after doenload
• *.autobuild file(s) - Define which packages are available and how autoproj should handle the code (autoproj may generate additional files, like a colcon.pkg file with cmake args). Autoproj can also build workspaces, in the ROS2 case you should still use colcon.
• *.osdeps file(s) - A list of OS dependencies, in this package set, the ros 2 wstool definitions is already imported.

Additional files are for advanced usage (see the autoproj documantation).

A buildconf ("autoproj" folder in the Worksapce)

A buildconf defines which packages from the package_set are actually installed into the workspace.

It is part of the workspace and thus can easily be shared among a team of developers (e.g. as a git repo).

Is also may contain "overrides" to adapt your checkouts/builds from the defaults in the package_set, this includes switching branches or setting specific cmake args for single libraries and adding patches.

• In the init.rb you define server configurations for source names used in the package set (e.g. "github")
• The overrides.d folder may contain .xml files with changes of location or branches (e.g. when you workspace is using a fork) or add patches to be auto-applied on checkout/update
• The overrides.rb file can change build definitions (e.g. build a scecific file in debug mode)

Installing

This decribes installing for the first time, some parts can be omitted for future checkouts

• sudo apt install ruby ruby-dev

• mkdir src

• cd src

• wget http://rock-robotics.org/autoproj_bootstrap

• ruby autoproj_bootstrap git https://github.com/dfki-ric/ros2-buildconf

  • answer the questions, when in doubt hit enter to use the default

• git config --global credential.helper cache

• edit the src/autoproj/manifest file to only include the packages you want in your workspace (remove the ros-2 entry)

• . env.sh

• autoproj update [PACKAGE_TO_INSTALL]

  • answer the questions, when in doubt hit enter to use the default

• cd ..

• sudo apt install python3-colcon-common-extensions if not already installed

• source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash

• colcon build

Sometimes depending packages are not found through pkg-config on first try, in this case: call source install/setup.bash and try colcon build again

Updating

You can update autoproj-defined packages in a single command. To do this source the src/env.sh script and call autoproj update when you append a package name or forlder, onthe that package AND its dependencies are updated.

Tips

• colcon_import_packages are often using pkg-config to find dependencies. When you get the error message "A required package was not found" when building, run colcon build with --event-handlers console_direct+ in order to see which package is not found

• colcon_import_packages are beneric cmake packages using some automation to be able to be compiled with colcon, as generating package.xml and colcon.pkg files, and generating a .ps file to make pkg-config work, but in some cases, you might need to source install/setup.bash again so colcon can find everything.