Use rosdep to install dependencies from workspace, but only selected

edit

rosdep accepts a list of pkgs as positional arguments, but you're given it directories. Is that perhaps why it's not working?

Also -- but I'm not sure: it could be that --from-paths is taking precedence here. Can you explain why you have both --from-paths (which is a "package selection" mechanism) and specify package names manually?

Could you also include the exact error message? It might be important to know what "path 'xxxxx'" really is.

Edit: I don't believe this is a supported use-case for rosdep.

Either you use --from-paths and point it to (a) director(y)(ies) that contain the packages for which you want to install the (transitive) dependencies, or you give it (a) package name(s) for which you want to install the (transitive) dependencies.

I want requirements of the built packages to be resolved inside the workspace first. But I don't want to install the dependencies for ALL ardent packages, just the set that is necessary to build my application.

wouldn't this be done by pointing rosdep to your package(s)? I don't understand why you still point rosdep to the complete workspace first.

Note: --from-paths does not mean: look for the pkgs that I provide as further arguments in this directory. It means: gather all pkgs in this directory and install their dependencies:

 --from-paths          Affects the 'check', 'keys', and 'install' verbs. If
                        specified the arguments to those verbs will be
                        considered paths to be searched, acting on all catkin
                        packages found there in.

Edit 2:

This answer could be improved by an example of how to use rosdep to install dependecies of one of the packages in the workspace (That is a supported use case, right?!). http://wiki.ros.org/ROS/Tutorials/rosdep is not really clear in that regard.

Doesn't section 1.1 cover that? From the link you post:

1.1 rosdep

rosdep is a tool you can use to install system dependencies required by ROS packages.

Usage:

rosdep install [package]

Download and install the system dependencies for turtlesim:

$ rosdep install turtlesim

And please note that the page you link does not appear to be part of the "official" documentation of rosdep. I believe the wiki/rosdep page is more up-to-date. In your case particularly the section wiki/rosdep - Using rosdep would seem to cover your question.