[ros-users] catkin_make convenience improvements

[William Woodall]

Sorry, it seems Dirk beat me to some of these things.

I see where you are coming from on these suggestions, and I agree we need
to work on making the tools easier to use, but I think being able to run
`catkin_make` from any sub folder of the workspace (after running it there
the first time) combined with a good "clean" and "dist clean" option will
make the tool much more usable.

--

On Wed, Jan 30, 2013 at 3:31 PM, William Woodall
<wwoodall at willowgarage.com>wrote:

> On Wed, Jan 30, 2013 at 2:13 PM, Jonathan Bohren <
> jonathan.bohren at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Jan 30, 2013 at 3:47 PM, Dirk Thomas <dthomas at willowgarage.com>wrote:
>>
>>> (even if you can with the current catkin by passing in custom folder for
>>> build/devel/install).
>>>
>>> Anyway we are looking for ways to make catkin_make have a bit more sugar
>>> to make that tool easier and more convenient to use.
>>
>>
>> Then what if we support the following new but thin, tools for people who
>> want to use catkin_make instead of full-on-catkin but don't like having to
>> jump around their filesystem in the standard CMake workflow.
>>
>
> The only improvement this proposal has is that it can be done from the
> source space.  I agree with Dirk that hiding files in a .catkin folder is
> not desirable, visibility is important, especially for people who are
> unfamiliar with this development model.
>
> As for the source space folder, aka `workspace/src`, my opinion is that it
> is an improvement on having all of the packages in the root of the
> workspace. The reason I say that is that having the source code not be
> direct peers of the build, devel, and install spaces makes searching it
> with simple tools easier.  For example:
>
> # I can search just the pristine source space
> $ cd ~/workspace/src
> $ grep -r "#ifndef ROSCPP_ROS_H" .
> ./roscpp/include/ros/ros.h:#ifndef ROSCPP_ROS_H
>
> # Or I have to search the build and install and devel spaces too
> $ cd ~/workspace
> $ ls ~/workspace
> src
> build
> devel
> install
> $ grep -r "#ifndef ROSCPP_ROS_H" .
> ./install_isolated/include/ros/ros.h:#ifndef ROSCPP_ROS_H
> ./src/roscpp/include/ros/ros.h:#ifndef ROSCPP_ROS_H
> ./build/....
>
> You can work around this with excludes and other things, but this is a
> distinct advantage from my point of view. On the other hand I can't think
> of a reason for having the source packages be direct peers of the other
> spaces...  The only real reason is that currently the tool doesn't let you
> run catkin_make from anywhere in the workspace, but we are proposing to fix
> that.
>
>
>> Note I use the current catkin_make script in `catkin init` to illustrate
>> what that should do. Also note that this preserves what are basically
>> pass-through calls to cmake and make
>>
>> `catkin init`:
>>     mkdir -p .catkin/build .catkin/install .catkin/devel
>>
>
> This line would not be needed.
>
>      catkin_make  --build .catkin/build --src . --devel .catkin/build
>>
>
> This would be: `catkin_make --build .catkin/build --src .
> -DCATKIN_DEVEL_PREFIX=.catkin/devel`
>
> The devel prefix is defined purely in cmake and we intended it that way.
> Also, just as a note, you don't want to point your devel and build space to
> the same folder, this would be like installing your normal cmake project to
> your cmake build folder.
>
> Also, `catkin_make` would have run cmake and make already so the follow
> commands are not necessary unless you want to run them explicitly.
>
> `catkin cmake [cmake_args]`:
>>     cd /path/to/ws/.catkin/build && cmake /path/to/ws $cmake_args
>> `catkin make [make_args]`:
>>     cd /path/to/ws/.catkin/build && make $make_args
>>  `catkin ninja [ninja_args]`:
>>     cd /path/to/ws/.catkin/build && ninja $ninja_args
>>
>
> I wouldn't think we would support ninja since cmake doesn't come with a
> native generator for it. Even then we don't support the other generators
> that cmake provides.
>
> `catkin source`:
>>     source /path/to/ws/.catkin/devel/setup.sh
>>
>
> How should it know which space to source?  If I just ran `catkin_make
> --install` on a clean workspace I now have a valid devel and install space
> of which I could source either.  Would this information be stored in the
> marker file or ...?
>
>
>>
>> Also it's worth noting that the current version catkin_make ignores the
>> "--devel" argument.
>>
>
> It does not have a `--devel` argument.
>
>
>>
>> -j
>>
>> --
>> Jonathan Bohren
>> PhD Student
>> Dynamical Systems and Control Laboratory
>> Laboratory for Computational Sensing and Robotics
>> The Johns Hopkins University
>>
>> (707) 520-4736
>> jbo at jhu.edu
>>
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>>
>>
>
>
> --
> William Woodall
> Willow Garage - Software Engineer
> wwoodall at willowgarage.com
>



-- 
William Woodall
Willow Garage - Software Engineer
wwoodall at willowgarage.com
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