Programmatic way to stop roslaunch

edit

the python api exposes a method for stopping a roslaunch

http://wiki.ros.org/roslaunch/API%20U...

My suggestion would be to rely on one or several nodes to take down the whole roslaunch script when they finish executing. Use the required="true" attribute inside a <node> tag, so whenever your node dies or finishes it takes down all of the other nodes in the launch file.

"rosnode kill -a"

I recommend you to use the subprocess module to solve this problem. e.g.:

#!/usr/bin/env python

import rospy
import subprocess
import signal

child = subprocess.Popen(["roslaunch","ros_arduino_python","arduino.launch"])
#child.wait() #You can use this line to block the parent process untill the child process finished.
print("parent process")
print(child.poll())

rospy.loginfo('The PID of child: %d', child.pid)
print ("The PID of child:", child.pid)

rospy.sleep(15)

child.send_signal(signal.SIGINT) #You may also use .terminate() method
#child.terminate()

#for more: https://docs.python.org/2/library/subprocess.html

If you want to stop it in the command line, you can kill the process like this:

roslaunch [package] [launchfile] &
roslaunch_PID=$!
# Do whatever you need to do here
kill -INT $roslaunch_PID

Unless the scriptapi actually can run launch files, here is my (somewhat confusing) solution.

1. Create a node that uses scriptapi to start/stop a single node specified by params. (the scriptapi approach doesn't look like it can run launch files, just nodes- it is just a programmatic rosrun, not roslaunch?)

2. Create a node that uses roslaunch directly to start a param defined launch file, with a hack to get around the way roslaunch uses sys.argv. The main method blocks so doesn't have a nice start/stop/is_alive interface like scriptapi.

   sys.agv=['roslaunch', 'pkg_name', 'foo.launch', 'arg:=bar']
   import roslaunch
   roslaunch.main(args)
   

3. Start the second roslaunch raw node within the first scriptapi node, and then if the stop method is used it uses the scriptapi stop method which interrupts the roslaunch, kills all the child nodes as desired.

Maybe there is an idea to allow scriptapi to run launch files, but it isn't currently implemented: https://github.com/ros/ros_comm/blob/...

This question is similar to http://answers.ros.org/question/22309... and http://answers.ros.org/question/20315...

If you're using C++ you can use system("pkill roslaunch") in your node to kill the roslaunch from the system level. I use it for monte carlo simulations with Gazebo).