I have a driver package_a and I want modify its dependency package_b for use in my project. I downloaded the package_b source into my catkin workspace, made the modifications, and successfully built the dependency. However package_a is unable to reference the new changes. I think is is because CMake found a different version of package_b somewhere else which does not have my modifications. How should I modify my CMakeLists.txt to use the locally build package_b in the catkin ws? I run rospack find package_b and the path is catkin_ws/src/package_b.
/catkin_ws - /src - /package_a - CMakeLists.txt - package.xml - /package_b - CMakeLists.txt - package.xml The dependencies listed in package_a/CMakeLists.txt is
find_package(package_b REQUIRED) find_package(catkin REQUIRED COMPONENTS ...) catkin_package( INCLUDE_DIRS include CATKIN_DEPENDS ... DEPENDS package_b ) include_directories( include ${package_b_INCLUDE_DIRS} ${catkin_INCLUDE_DIRS} ) target_link_libraries(${PROJECT_NAME} ${package_b_LIBRARIES} ${catkin_LIBRARIES} ) For reference, the package_b is libcreate and package_a is create_robot.
Originally posted by bscout2011 on ROS Answers with karma: 1 on 2021-07-06
Post score: 0
Original comments
Comment by prince on 2021-07-07:
CMakeLists reads ok. Also 'rospack find package_b' command is also outputing correct path. Are you installing the resultant library?
Comment by mgruhler on 2021-07-07:
Is package_b a ROS package? If yes, you should probably have it in the find_package(catkin...) command as a component, as well as in CATKIN_DEPENDS instead of DEPENDS. Also, how exactly do you add package_b to the include_Directories and target_link_libraries calls? Please edit your question with the relevant lines of your CMakeLIsts.txt.
Comment by Mike Scheutzow on 2021-07-07:
After running catkin_make at least once, have you sourced the setup.bash in catkin_ws/devel ?
source ~/catkin_ws/devel/setup.bash You have to do this for catkin_make to "see" the packages in your home directory.
Comment by bscout2011 on 2021-07-07:
@prince I am not sure if I am creating an install for package_b.
@mgruhler package_b is a ROS package and I have the package_b.so library in my /opt/ros/melodic/lib folder. I added the inlcude_directories and target_link_libraries to the posted question.
@Mike Scheutzow The build itself is failing, so sourcing the workspace would not solve the issue.
Comment by mgruhler on 2021-07-08:
@bscout2011 I'm assuming you followed the build instructions in libcreates Readme and used catkin_tools to build it? With a plain catkin_make the lib shouldn't compile. This is because libcreate is actually not a ROS package, but a plain CMake project (even though the package.xml exists), but the CMakeLIsts.txt does not find_package(catkin ...).
If you used catkin_tools, you actually need to source the workspace once again for the package path to be picked up. This is because catkin_tools by default builds the packages in isolation (same holds for catkin_make_isolated).
Comment by Mike Scheutzow on 2021-07-08:
@mgruhler you should post your comment as the answer.