Robot Operating System (ROS)

ROS packages naming and structure

Creating a new package

Naming

In order to create a new ROS package for one of the repositories some rules need to be considered:
1. The package name has always the following format:
prefix_my_package_name
1. Use the right prefix for every repository:
1. mas_domestic_robotics: mdr_
2. mas_industrial_robotics: mir_
3. mas_common_robotics: mcr_
1. Use lowercase.
2. Separate words in the package name by underscores (_).
Examples for creating packages according to the above described rules are as follows:
```
catkin create_pkg mdr_grasp_planning
catkin create_pkg mir_whole_body_control
catkin create_pkg mcr_object_detection
```

Folder structure

Every ROS package within our repositories has to strictly match the following structure:

.
├── common
│   ├── config
│   ├── include
│   │   └── <package_name>
│   ├── src
│   │   └── <package_name>
│   ├── test
│   └── tools
├── ros
│   ├── config
│   ├── include
│   │   └── <package_name>
│   ├── launch
│   │   └── <package_name>.launch
│   ├── rviz
│   │   └── <package_name>.rviz
│   ├── scripts
│   │   └── <package_name>
│   ├── src
│   │   └── <package_name>_node
│   ├── test
│   └── tools
├── CMakeLists.txt
├── package.xml
├── setup.py
└── README.md

In short:

ROS-independent code goes into the common folder
the ros folder contains a ROS-wrapper for the functionality you are adding

Meta-packages

If the package you are creating is meant to contain other packages inside of it, it needs to have instead the following structure:

./<meta_package_name>
└── <meta_package_name>
    ├── CMakeLists.txt
    ├── package.xml
    └── README.md

Note

It is extremely important to maintain your package.xml up to date with its dependencies. Not doing so results in the need of specialized tools or manual inspection of launch files and source code to discover your package dependencies.

Messages, services and actions

Creating a new message, service or action. If your package defines its own messages, services or actions you should add them to the corresponding meta-package:

./<package_name>_msgs
├── action
│   ├── MyAction.action
├── msg
│   ├── MyMessage.msg
├── srv
│   └── MyService.srv
├── CMakeLists.txt
├── package.xml
└── README.md

Note

The srv file name should start with verb i.e. RecognizeImage.srv

Depending on the repository you are working on, the meta-package is related to the domain, e.g. mdr_planning_msgs or mdr_navigation_actions

Linting

Running roslint with catkin

Before merging into the main repository roslint is ran on all merge requests. Unless all errors are resolved the merge request will be rejected. To test if your changes would pass the roslint test locally:

Add the following lines to your CMakelists.txt:

find_package(catkin REQUIRED COMPONENTS roslint ...)

roslint_python()  # pep8 linting
roslint_cpp()     # ROS wrapper of Google's cpplint

Your package.xm should include roslint as a build dependency:

<build_depend>roslint</build_depend>

Build target roslint:

with catkin_make:
```
catkin_make roslint_<package_name>
```

with catkin_tools:

catkin build --no-deps <package_name> --make-args roslint_<package_name>

If build fail copy and execute the gray line that looks something like the following to see more detailed errors:

cd <package_source_directory>
catkin build --get-env <package_name> | catkin env -si  /usr/bin/make roslint --jobserver-fds=6,7 -j; cd -

Running catkin_lint

You should also make sure that the catkin_lint tests pass; running it from the root of your catkin workspace you can run:

catkin_lint --strict --ignore CRITICAL_VAR_APPEND,LINK_DIRECTORY src/mas_domestic_robotics