Sharing non-ROS code between packages in catkin

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A non-package directory is an option as well, right? Though that would necessitate building with catkin_make_isolated as opposed to catkin_make?

I was hesitant to make another package for the common code (since it's not really standalone), but it's better than option 2 for me in this instance.

Thanks for your help!

You're right, there is a third option (and probably some others as well). I've added it to the list.

Note that it's really easy to create a Debian pkg with something like checkinstall. That makes things immediately usable as system dependency.

re: not really stand-alone: I'm not sure how that matters. Library code is almost never stand-alone (ie: doesn't do anything by itself if not used by something else).

Btw: do the designs change the way the shared code is used? If not, it might make sense to create a stand-alone 'driver' node that gets parameterised by the three packages that provide info about the gripper designs.

The shared code just does the socket/UDP stuff, and each gripper will likely have a different interface (though that isn't nailed down yet). The way I have it architected now, each gripper can be controlled with or without ROS, so I'll probably want to stick with that (as opposed to strictly...

coupling the shared code to ROS).