Best practices for setting up catkin_make install for python nodes

asked 2013-04-15 07:19:06 -0500

Brendan Andrade
83 ●3 ●3 ●7 http://www.brendanandrade.com/

updated 2014-01-28 17:16:11 -0500

ngrennan
1 ●1 ●1

I am currently updating my code from rosbuild to catkin as I switch from Fuerte to Groovy.

Current setup: Ubuntu 12.04, Groovy

I am looking for best practices for packages with python nodes and libraries.

This is my current file structure:

/groovy-workspace
    /build
    /devel
    /install
    /src
       /my_meta_pkg
           /my_pkg_A
           /my_pkg B
           /my_pkg_etc...

Under /my_pkg_A:

/scripts
    my_node.py
    my_API.py (my_node imports my_API)
    __init__.py
setup.py
__init__.py
package.xml
CMakeLists.txt

setup.py:

#!/usr/bin/env python

from distutils.core import setup
from catkin_pkg.python_setup import generate_distutils_setup

d = generate_distutils_setup(
    packages=['my_pkg_A'],
    package_dir={'': 'src'}
)

setup(**d)

CMakeLists.txt:

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 2.8.3)
project(my_pkg_A)

# Load catkin and all dependencies required for this package
set(CATKIN_DEPS std_msgs geometry_msgs rospy)
set(SYS_DEPS python-serial python-sys)
find_package(catkin REQUIRED COMPONENTS ${CATKIN_DEPS})

# Install python scripts using distutils
catkin_python_setup()

catkin_package(
    DEPENDS ${SYS_DEPS}
    CATKIN_DEPENDS ${CATKIN_DEPS}
)

install(PROGRAMS scripts/my_node.py scripts/my_API.py
  DESTINATION ${CATKIN_PACKAGE_PYTHON_DESTINATION}
)

When I run

catkin_make install

in /groovy-workspace, it fails during the make sequence with the error

error: package directory 'src/my_pkg_A' does not exist

I have deduced that it is looking for the python scripts in the python workspace

/groovy-workspace/src/my_meta_pkg/my_pkg_A/src/my_pkg_A

Would it be best practice to create this directory and move my_node.py, my_API.py, and __init__.py to this directory? Or should I change setup.py to look at /scripts and what would be the best way to do this? Or is there a different way everything should be structured to follow ROS best practices?

Thanks for the help!

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#!/usr/bin/env python from distutils.core import setup from catkin_pkg.python_setup import generate_distutils_setup d = generate_distutils_setup( packages=['my_pkg_A'], package_dir={'': 'scripts'} ) setup(**d)

Comments

I made this change and it returns the error:error: package directory 'scripts/my_pkg_A' does not exist. Should there be a folder /my_pkg_A/scripts/my_pkg_A? Is that where I should place my_node.py? Would this result in being able to use rosrun my_pkg_A my_node.py after sourcing the install setup?

Brendan Andrade ( 2013-04-15 07:31:50 -0500 )edit

So, in python the "name" of your API (package) is the name of the folder containing the __init__.py, so yeah you probably want a sub folder for src which is the name of your package.