CATKIN_DEVEL_PREFIX in catkin_make vs catkin tools

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I'm trying to make our build compatible with catkin_make and catkin tools, but how CATKIN_DEVEL_PREFIX is handled in the two tools is causing me some trouble.

We have some (non-ROS) tools that generate headers that need to be included by the current package being built, and by downstream packages. Our pure-cmake build system would create these headers in the out-of-source build directory and install them into the install directory. Downstream packages would include the $INSTALL/include directory and all would be well. We adapted our build to be catkin_make compatible by copying the files into ${CATKIN_DEVEL_PREFIX}/include at configure time, and downstream packages could find them by adding ${CATKIN_DEVEL_PREFIX}/include to their include path.

This doesn't work with catkin tools, because CATKIN_DEVEL_PREFIX points to a devel/.private directory and then symlinks content into devel space. Is there a variable available at configure time in CMake that points to workspace/devel that is available in both catkin_make and catkin tools?

I know this problem can be solved by making foo-extras.cmake.develspace.in and foo-extras.cmake.installspace.in for each project, but that'll be a huge pain. A variable that is consistent between the two tools that points to the workspace/devel directory would be a lot more straightforward.

Thanks, -Mark

Edit: Creating a minimal example would take a fair amount of work, I'll point to some of the relevant files and hopefully that will be sufficient.

Here's our cmake macro for generating source from RTI DDS IDL: https://github.com/mallanmba/irg_cmak...

Here's a CMakeLists.txt that uses the macro: https://github.com/mallanmba/soraCore...

There's a block at the end that checks for catkin_FOUND and copies the generated headers into devel space. If that block is not there, none of the headers show up in devel space. I've never observed catkin_make or catkin_tools putting headers into devel space unless I explicitly copy them there. How is the "automatic" placement of includes in devel supposed to work?

The issue that I'm having with CATKIN_DEVEL_PREFIX between catkin_make and catkin tools is that catkin_make sets that variable to foo_ws/devel and catkin tools sets it to foo_ws/devel/.private/bar_project and then symlinks into foo_ws/devel. If I have project_B that depends on generated headers from project_A, and I add ${CATKIN_DEVEL_PREFIX}/${CATKIN_GLOBAL_INCLUDE_DESTINATION} to the include path of a project_B, it works fine for catkin_make. But it fails for catkin tools because ${CATKIN_DEVEL_PREFIX} is pointing to foo_ws/devel/.private/project_B, and project_B can't see project_A's generated headers.