ROS2_README.md

Create/Open a colcon workspace

• Make sure that colcon is installed.

• In a terminal run the following to create the my_workspace workspace and bring up the linux terminals configured to the newly created workspace

  ros2_session dashing my_workspace -c
  

• If a catkin workspace already exist then just run the following to bring up the terminals configured to that workspace:

  ros2_session dashing my_workspace
  

• If another ROS2 distribution is installed on the local machine such as eloquent, then run:

   ros2_session eloquent my_workspace
  

List current catkin workspaces

• In a terminal run the following command to list the current workspaces:

  ros2_session -l dashing
  

• The output should look like this:

  workspace_1
  workspace_2
  .
  .
  .
  

Create a colcon mixin to blacklist packages from the build

This feature is useful when the repositories in the workspace contain a mixture of ROS1 (catkin) and ROS2 (colcon) packages and the goal is to ignore the ROS1 packages from the build.

Resources:

• repo
• answers.ros.org
• doc

Steps

• Add a skin.mixin file in a repo of your workspace src directory with a list of the packages that should be skipped

  {
    "build": {
      "skip": {
        "packages-skip": ["ros1_pkg1",
                          "ros1_pkg2",
                          "moveit_ros1",
                          ],
      }
    }
  }
  

• If you have multiple repositories with packages that should be ignore then add skin.mixin files there as well. with the packages from that repo that need to be ignored.
• Run the following command to add the skipped packages from all the skin.mixin files into a global mixin

  colcon_ws_setup
  

• The output from that should be as follows:

  .
  .
  .
  'ros1_pkg1'
  'ros1_pkg2'
  'moveit_ros1']
  !!!IMPORTANT!!! Run the following command to skip these packages during a build:
      colcon build --symlink-install --mixin skip
  ROS-dashing[crs_ws]: ./colcon_env_setup.py 
  
  

• Build using the skip mixin

  colcon build --symlink-install --mixin skip
  

Workspace Context Commands

Create Eclipse project

• From the workspace top level directory run the following cmd on a existing ros2 package my_ros2_pkg

  create_eclipse_proj my_ros2_pkg
  

• This will create the eclipse project files under the projects directory.
• Then in the "Eclipse CDT" IDE you can import as an "Existing Project Into Workspace" by browsing to this projects directory and selecting your ros2 package.