Colcon is the preferred way to compile the SoT as it is shipped with the newest ROS releases and available on several non Linux platforms.

Introduction

This memo explains how to create and handle a super build (set of packages) workspace of the SoT with colcon tools. Colcon can be installed independently from ROS using pip.

As explained in Introduction there is several solutions to install a source base environment.

Quick start

Install third party dependencies of the SoT packages

To install the necessary SoT software third party dependencies in '''/path_to_target_dir``` you can simply try:

wget -O install-dep-thru-rpkg.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/stack-of-tasks/sot-doc/master/bash/install-dep-thru-rpkg.sh
chmod +x ./install-dep-thru-rpkg.sh
./install-dep-thru-rpkg.sh -p /path_to_target_dir -s /path_to_robotpkg_src

This will donwload, set, compile and install the binairies in /path_to_target_dir and store the sources in /path_to_robotpkg_src. It is heavily based on the tool robotpkg

Other options to install the source dependencies are given in Installing dependencies.

Setup your environment

source setup-sot.sh -p /path_to_target_dir -r
source setup-sot.sh -p /path_to_sot_ws/install -r

Create your workspace

Once this is done, to create your SoT workspace using the file sot_talos.repos:

wget -O install-sot-catkin-ws.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/stack-of-tasks/sot-doc/master/bash/install-sot-catkin-ws.sh
chmod +x ./install-sot-catkin-ws.sh
./install-sot-catkin-ws.sh -p /path_to_sot_ws

Quick start explanations

The previous script is doing the following steps:

mkdir -p /path_to_sot_ws
cd /path_to_sot_ws
wget -O sot_talos.repos https://raw.githubusercontent.com/stack-of-tasks/sot-doc/master/config/sot_talos.repos
vcs import --recursive < sot_talos.repos
# configure your catkin environment

To build everything you can simply type:

colcon build --merge-install

The cmake arguments are explained in more details in Compiling and testing the packages (catkin)

Handling the repositories (VCS)

This section is already described

Compiling and testing the packages (catkin)

Setting the cmake args

For instance we want to force the system to be in debug mode and to set some variables we can use the following command:

cd /path_to_sot_ws
colcon build --merge-install --packages-select sot-dynamic-pinocchio --cmake-args ' -DPYTHON_EXECUTABLE=/usr/local/opt/python@3.8/bin/python3' ' -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RELEASE'  ' -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=/usr/bin/c++' ' -DCMAKE_CXX_STANDARD=14'

It forces the package sot-dynamic-pinocchio to be installed in the install folder, forces the CMake package to be compiled in RELEASE mode, and the python executable is

/usr/local/opt/python@3.8/bin/python3

Compiling

Compiling everything

colcon build --merge-install

Compiling a specific package with its dependencies

For instance the following command is compiling the dynamic-graph-python package:

colcon build --merge-install --packages-up-to dynamic-graph-python

Compiling a specific package without its dependencies

For instance the following command is compiling the dynamic-graph-python package:

colcon build --merge-install --packages-select dynamic-graph-python

Generating the documentation

For instance the following command is generating the documentation for the sot-core package:

colcon build --merge-install --packages-select sot-core  --make-args doc

Clean all the build part

rm -rf ./build

Running tests

Example running the test programs of the package dynamic-graph-python in the workspace root directory:

colcon test --packages-select dynamic-graph-python

Note: make sure that the install directory is specified in the environment variables LD_LIBRARY_PATH and PYTHONPATH for instance. By default all dependent packages will also run the tests. To prevent this it is highly recommended to use:

colcon test --packages-select dynamic-graph-python

Computing coverage

You need to add to the CXX_FLAGS and the LD_FLAGS the value –coverage:

colcon build --cmake-args -DCMAKE_CXX_FLAGS="--coverage" -DCMAKE_LD_FLAGS="--coverage"

Then run the test:

colcon test dynamic-graph-python

And in the workspace root directory you need to run:

gcovr -r . --html --html-details -o ./logs/coverage/index.html

To get the output of the coverage:

firefox ./logs/coverage/index.html