[Rock-dev] Rock.cmake

[Sylvain Joyeux]

First question: what do you mean by "build system" exactly here ?

On 04/15/2011 04:03 PM, Peter Soetens wrote:
> Could someone explain me why there is this parallel effort in
> rock.cmake, which mirrors partially the UseOrocos-RTT.cmake macros ?
Because we don't want the rock libraries to be dependent on having RTT 
installed. In any way. Rock.cmake is not used, and is not going to be 
used, in orogen components. It is used only in the pure libraries that 
are shipped within Rock.

> The major feedback we got from the Orocos workshop was that there was
> a need for a single build system, for both ros, rock and 'pure' orocos
> users. What we're now looking at is that the Orocos toolchain can be
> installed first, then ros and/or rock are installed and it will depend
> on the application package if it's going to be a rosbuild ( no make
> install ) or a standard build (with make install). ros would come with
> a stack that integrates an existing orocos toolchain installation into
> the ros eco system. rock would need to do the same, but orogen
> generates packages that are buildable as a ros package, using the
> UseOrocos-RTT.cmake macros. Furthermore, we could define a cmake macro
> is_ros_package() that returns true if the current package is in a
> ROS_PACKAGE_PATH instead of checking against the ROS_ROOT environment
> variable (which might be accidentally set).
I don't understand this plan ... Could you explain a bit more ?

(by the way, orogen does *not* generate packages that are buildable as 
ros packages. *typegen* generates typekits that does. What you do with 
typegen and what rock does with orogen are greatly different approaches.

> Looking at the rock.cmake file, it appears now orogen projects will
> never work in a ros build environment.If you had used the
> UseOrocos-RTT.cmake macros, the generated orogen code would have been
> buildable by ROS users too.
Rock.cmake is not in use (and not going to be used) in orogen-generated 
packages. And UseOrocos-RTT.cmake is way too RTT specific to be used in 
libraries. And UseOrocos-RTT appeared way after orogen packages and I'm 
very open with someone doing a *working* migration of orogen templates 
to UseOrocos-RTT.cmake

> I'm really looking for a solution here and not for an argument. If we
> don't fix this soon, we'll loose (again) our momentum, and they will
> not be moving to rock, but to ros. Guarantee you that.
Until we get to the point that orogen components can run on ROS, which 
the current ROS transport does *not* provide, I don't see how the build 
system has any influence in that respect. But anyway.

I'm (and I think I am also talking for quite a few rock developpers) all 
open for getting a set of cmake macros that are (1) not 
orocos-toolchain-RTT specific and (2) compatible with both "make 
install" and "ros-like" installations. (1) is provided by Rock.cmake (2) 
is not.
Ah and (3) not trying to do too much, which is what the current 
UseOROCOS*.cmake does.

The macros in Rock.cmake follow general guidelines for "make 
install-oriented stuff" and pkg-config-based dependency tracking. Plus a 
few sub-package-specific thing (as for instance, testsuite, vizkit 
plugins and stuff like that that are optional parts of the standard rock 
library package). Not much more than that.
-- 
Sylvain Joyeux (Dr.Ing.)
Space & Security Robotics

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