How to use roslaunch with rosrust?

[OTL]

I want to use rosrust binary with roslaunch.

How do you integrate rust program with roslaunch? It is possible to copy the binary to somewhere like catkin_ws/develop/lib/PACKAGE/, but is there good integration with cargo?

[neachdainn]

My Catkin integration method is to use a CMake file like the following:

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.0)
project(my-project)

find_package(catkin REQUIRED)
catkin_package()

add_custom_target(my-project
	ALL
	COMMAND cargo build --release -p my-project
	COMMAND ${CMAKE_COMMAND} -E copy ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/cargo/release/my-project-binary ${CMAKE_RUNTIME_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY}/my-project-binary
	COMMENT "Building my Rust library"
)

I also have the following in .cargo/config and I have all of my Rust libraries use a shared workspace:

[build]
target-dir = "build/cargo"

This setup allows any of the Rust executables to be treated like any other ROS package, both for building and for use with rosrun and roslaunch.

[neachdainn]

I think anything beyond that will probably require modifying Catkin to know about Rust and that will probably be hindered by Cargo not providing a way to specify output directories.

[OTL]

Thank you! It seems great! I did not think of using catkin.

Currently I'm using below workspaces style.

~/rust/: for all rust programs contains rosrust programs
~/catkin/: for ros without rust

Your idea is below right?

~/rust/: only for pure rust excludes rosrust
~/catkin/: for ros includes rosrust

Are you comfortable about it?

[neachdainn]

I have all my Rust code for this project inside of Catkin "packages" even if it doesn't use ROS just to make it easier for my collaborators to use the libraries without having to deal with anything Rust. That is, I don't have to explain to them that there is a cargo build --release step - they just run catkin_make or catkin build and it just works.

[OTL]

I see. I'll use your idea!

Thanks a lot!

[OTL]

Hi @neachdainn i'm trying the integration.

I created metapackage which include everything, and placed it ~/catkin_ws/src/the_meta_package/ And I needed ~/catkin_ws/src/Cargo.toml.

It is like

[workspace]
members = [ "src/the_meta_package/each_package1", .... ]

And each_package1/CMakeLists.txt is like you showed in this thread.

Is this what you mean? Could you give me some advice if you don't mind?

[neachdainn]

My workspace roughly looks like this:

catkin_ws
|--- Cargo.toml
|--- .cargo
|    |--- config
|--- src
     |--- rust_pkg_1
     |     |--- Cargo.toml
     |     |--- CMakeLists.txt
     |     |--- package.xml
     |     |--- src
     |           |--- lib.rs
     |--- rust_pkg_2
     |     |--- Cargo.toml
     |     |--- CMakeLists.txt
     |     |--- package.xml
     |     |--- src
     |           |--- lib.rs
     |--- non_rust_pkg
           |--- usual_cpp_stuff

Where the root Cargo.toml contains the workspace information.

[OTL]

Great! thank you!

I'm using catkin build, then

	COMMAND ${CMAKE_COMMAND} -E copy ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/cargo/release/my-project-binary ${CMAKE_RUNTIME_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY}/my-project-binary

is not working. ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR} seems to be catkin_ws/src/my-project/build.

I'm using ${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/../ something instead of ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}.

Do you know about it?

[neachdainn]

I don't know why that wouldn't work. My only guess is you might need to make sure that you declare the catkin_package before you add the custom target?

[OTL]

It has catkin_package. But it is not related to rosrust directly, i'll dig into catkin by myself. Thank you for your kind support!

[OTL]

It seems that the difference between catkin_make and catkin build. catkin build does not have root project.

I guess that you are using catkin_make. When you create some tools in the future, i'm happy if you consider catkin build users.

[neachdainn]

Is ${CMAKE_RUNTIME_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY} still the correct folder with catkin build? I think I know how to make this work as long as that variable is correctly set. If it isn't, I'll have to get more creative.

[neachdainn]

I have found that I have similar issues with catkin_make_isolated. Watching the progress of this issue might be worthwhile.

[neachdainn]

I have dug through the CMake variables and it seems there is no way to detect if you are running catkin_make, catkin_make_isolated, or catkin build.

[nobuyuki-tomizawa]

( Thank you guys for nice information. It's super nice if we could generate package.xml & CMakefile.txt :-) with cargo sub-command or something. )

[elsuizo]

Hi all!! i got a program for automate the solution of @neachdainn

https://github.com/elsuizo/ros-project-generator

I am using a template library maybe it is not necessary.

[pmirabel]

Hello! At the price of an environment variable, I was able to keep my traditional git repo hierarchy (pushing only package, not whole catkin_ws needed because of the root cargo.toml). I use catkin_make_isolated and I added a roslaunch example to make it "plug and play" :) You can find it here : https://gitlab.com/pmirabel/rosrust-boilerplate Please tell me if you see some improvements, I am still not comfortable with all of this !

[kjeremy]

After adding the cmake ppa and updating my cmake I was able to build/install corrosion. Then I could do:

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.0.2)
project(publisher_node)

find_package(catkin REQUIRED)
find_package(Corrosion REQUIRED)

catkin_package()

corrosion_import_crate(MANIFEST_PATH Cargo.toml)

corrosion_install(TARGETS ${PROJECT_NAME}
  RUNTIME DESTINATION ${CATKIN_PACKAGE_BIN_DESTINATION}
)

This builds but did not install my publisher_node. I can't figure out how to get rosrun to see my package until I build with catkin_make install.

[neachdainn]

I have not tested this out, but something like this might work:

add_custom_command(TARGET ${PROJECT_NAME} 
    POST_BUILD
    COMMAND ${CMAKE_COMMAND} -E copy "${${PROJECT_NAME}_binary_dir}/${PROJECT_NAME}" "${CMAKE_RUNTIME_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY}/${PROJECT_NAME}"
)

Basically, after the build is done copy the binary file from the build directory into the appropriate devel directory. rosrun doesn't do anything clever when it is run, so copying the final executable to the correct directory should just work. I do something similar to this in my code and it works, though I don't know if it will break anything e.g. installing.