Fran,

Not sure if anyone responded to you, but REP-140 explains the package.xml
format fairly completely:

http://www.ros.org/reps/rep-0140.html

--


On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 6:22 PM, Francis Belliveau
<f.belliveau@comcast.net>wrote:

> Jack,
>
> I am responding to you outside review channels because I am way too new to
> ROS to be comfortable participating in public discussions.
> I read the overview level documentation and it made sense are far as it
> went.
>
> What I find missing is a reference to the schema for a package XML
> document.  I am actually surprised that the documentation does not mention
> any of the normal XML meta data that one normally places before the main
> document element identifying the schema, namespaces and/or XSLT references.
>
> One of the reasons that I am having trouble understanding how to get
> started with ROS is because the beginner tutorials do not include links to
> “all the gory details and possibilities”.  The documentation can solve all
> that by just providing a reference to the schema file and it would be the
> readers problem to figure out how to expand upon the simple examples
> provided.
>
> The first thing that cam to mind reading the overview was when I got to
> the second code segment listing “authors”.  That was followed by the
> “URLs”.  There was nothing to tell me where these should be placed within
> package.xml.  I am sure that I could dig into the tutorials and find the
> information, but, understanding XML the way I do, I would prefer to figure
> it out myself from the schema definition.
>
> Just my opinion.
> You people are doing great things.  I very much like ROS at the conceptual
> level but cannot seem to figure out where to start.
>
> Fran
>
> On May 18, 2014, at 12:20 PM, Jack O'Quin <jack.oquin@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Now that package.xml format 2 support has been implemented, I have
> updated the catkin how-to documentation to explain the new version and how
> to migrate from format 1. The older version is still supported and
> documented.
> >
> > You need not be an expert in catkin or build systems to contribute to
> this review. If the examples and explanations are unclear or do not make
> sense to you, we want to know about it.
> >
> > Formatted copy:
> >
> >  http://farnsworth.csres.utexas.edu/docs/catkin/html/
> >
> > Please use this pull request for your comments and suggestions, so we
> have a full record of the discussions:
> >
> >  https://github.com/ros/catkin/pull/634
> >
> > The pull request only updates the Indigo branch. Similar changes will be
> needed for the Groovy and Hydro branch. That will be done when the review
> is completed.
> > --
> >  joq
> > _______________________________________________
> > ros-users mailing list
> > ros-users@lists.ros.org
> > http://lists.ros.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-users
>
> _______________________________________________
> ros-users mailing list
> ros-users@lists.ros.org
> http://lists.ros.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-users
>



-- 
William Woodall
ROS Development Team
william@osrfoundation.org
http://wjwwood.io/