It can be done, you just need to build the files correctly. Taking the minimum publisher as an example, you can break it up into different files:
minimal_publisher.hpp
#include <chrono>
#include <functional>
#include <memory>
#include <string>
#include "rclcpp/rclcpp.hpp"
#include "std_msgs/msg/string.hpp"
class MinimalPublisher : public rclcpp::Node
{
public:
MinimalPublisher();
private:
void timer_callback();
rclcpp::TimerBase::SharedPtr timer_;
rclcpp::Publisher<std_msgs::msg::String>::SharedPtr publisher_;
size_t count_;
};
minimal_publisher.cpp
#include "minimal_publisher.hpp"
MinimalPublisher::MinimalPublisher ()
: Node("minimal_publisher"), count_(0)
{
publisher_ = this->create_publisher<std_msgs::msg::String>("topic", 10);
timer_ = this->create_wall_timer(
500ms, std::bind(&MinimalPublisher::timer_callback, this));
}
MinimalPublisher::timer_callback()
{
auto message = std_msgs::msg::String();
message.data = "Hello, world! " + std::to_string(count_++);
RCLCPP_INFO(this->get_logger(), "Publishing: '%s'", message.data.c_str());
publisher_->publish(message);
}
minimal_publisher_node.cpp
#include "minimal_publisher.hpp"
int main(int argc, char * argv[])
{
rclcpp::init(argc, argv);
rclcpp::spin(std::make_shared<MinimalPublisher>());
rclcpp::shutdown();
return 0;
}
Now you just need to be able to build it correctly. If you don't care exactly, you can wrap it all into one add_executable
call in the CMakeLists.txt. Or, you can build them minimal_publisher.hpp and .cpp as a library and then the minimal_publisher_node.cpp
as an executable and link the library.