[ros-users] Create a ROS meta package

[Jack O'Quin]

On Sun, Oct 9, 2011 at 4:37 AM, Steven Bellens
<steven.bellens at mech.kuleuven.be> wrote:

> with the orocos_toolchain recently released for ROS electric, we'd
> like to generate a meta package for it as well. The stack is currently
> split up in 5 different stacks, and we want users to be able to
> install them all with one package. How do we generate such a meta
> package and release it?
>
> Do we just create an additional stack, with no code in it, depending
> on all 5 stacks? Or is there another way?

You can do that or else define a REP 108 "variant":

 http://www.ros.org/reps/rep-0108.html

There are sometimes good reasons to retain an empty meta-stack:

 * It can serve as a documentation node to collect data on the whole
set of stacks and packages.

 * In cases where an existing stack was divided into smaller ones, the
meta-stack provides a consistent interface on which other stacks can
depend.

-- 
 joq