Just write them one after another for example:

source ~/catkin_ws/setup.bash
source ~/catkin_ws_2/setup.bash

Make sure to run

catkin_make

in each one of them separately.

Comments

I am using in my ~/.bashrc the standard way, e.g. for ROS2:

# ros2_ws workspace
source ~/ros2_ws/install/setup.bash

# dev_ws workspace
source ~/dev_ws/install/setup.bash

# nav2_ws workspace
source ~/nav2_ws/install/setup.bash

In ROS1 you can do something similar, I think? Based on: http://wiki.ros.org/catkin/Tutorials/workspace_overlaying Just be sure to have the correct chain of sourcing: http://wiki.ros.org/catkin/Tutorials/workspace_overlaying

You can try to have aliases too, e.g. I had at one time in the past two of them, alias goros2galactic="source /opt/ros/galactic/setup.bash" and alias goros2foxy="source /opt/ros/foxy/setup.bash"

Comments

Contrary to ROS 2, you cannot really source multiple setup.bash at the same time in ROS 1 -- or at least not multiple sibling workspaces.

And if you're overlaying, you only need to source the outermost layer.

Asked by gvdhoorn on 2022-02-17 06:06:43 UTC

TIL, thank you, sorry for misleading there

Asked by ljaniec on 2022-02-17 11:14:53 UTC

In ROS1 you cannot source multiple workspaces at the same time (in the same environment or same terminal). You can only source one workspace at a time along with the setup.bash of ROS.

So what I usually do is create an alias in my .bashrc file with the name of every workspace commanding to source that workspace when that specific alias is run.

For e.g. I have a workspaces abc_ws and xys_ws. I will create aliases abc_ws and xyz_ws in my .bashrc file as follows :

alias abc_ws='source <path_to_abc_ws>/devel/setup.bash'

alias xyz_ws='source <path_to_xyz_ws>/devel/setup.bash'

And call them whenever I need the source the workspaces (one in a single environment or terminal)

Note : You can have more than one terminals open at the same time with different ROS workspaces sourced in them.

Comments

Hi could you elaborate on how ypu do these aliases?

Asked by PumpkinIcedTea on 2022-02-18 02:17:33 UTC

@PumpkinIcedTea As I've explained in my example, you just need to set the aliases in the .bashrc file

Asked by electrophod on 2022-02-18 03:00:03 UTC