rosws: A tool for managing source code workspaces

rosws can do anything that rosinstall can do, and more. Most commands will just do a small subset of a single rosinstall invocation, so users can more easily understand and control the tool actions.

The main difference to rosinstall is that rosws uses an SCM like syntax of command keywords.

The motivation for rosws was that many users were overwhelmed with the number of things rosinstall does with just one command, and ended up not using it at all. rosws does much less and informs the user more about what it will do, so that users should feel safer and also should more easily understand what the tool is doing.

The single most important feature that is different to rosinstall is the info command. The second most is the set command.

The general design philosophy for rosws wa that each command should just perform a single task, not multiple tasks.

The command was introduced with [REP110].

Wishlist

Thanks to its scm like syntax the rosws tool has a lot of room to grow. Possible changes that have been discussed are:

  • declare fixed positions for entries
  • maintain environment parameters like PATH, PYTHONPATH, LD_LIBRARY_PATH in .rosinstall
  • ability to deactivate entries but still keep their data in the file
  • manage labeled configurations for individual entries (and whole workspace)
  • manage nested or included workspaces
  • maintain workspace meta-information (rosinstall version, workspace relationships)
  • use an improved yaml syntax that also allows for all of the above
  • rosws as shell command to switch workspaces (prototype in contrib/rosws.shell)
  • recognize SCM folders as such when adding them
  • provide tags and branches of distributed SCMs in tab-completion and info
  • show whether updates are available on remote
  • colorize outputs
  • a command to reorder elements
  • an option for set to change element position
  • split out ROS agnostic tool for multi-vcs shell-project management
  • ability to store personal tool preferences in a .rc file
  • rosgui plugin

At the time of this writing the rosws command is very new, so it was decided to only provide a small set of commands and see how users accept those before adding functionality.

Usage

rosws is a command to manipulate ROS workspaces. rosws replaces its predecessor rosinstall.

Official usage:
  rosws CMD [ARGS] [OPTIONS]

rosws will try to infer install path from context

Type 'rosws help' for usage.
Options:
  help          provide help for commands
  init          set up a directory as workspace

  set           add or changes one entry from your workspace config
  merge         merges your workspace with another config set

  update        update or check out some of your config elements

  info          Overview of some entries
  status        print the change status of files in some SCM controlled entries
  diff          print a diff over some SCM controlled entries

  regenerate    create ROS workspace specific setup files

init

set up a directory as workspace

rosws init does the following:

  1. Reads folder/file/web-uri SOURCE_PATH looking for a rosinstall yaml
  2. Creates new .rosinstall file at TARGET-PATH configured
  3. Generates ROS setup files

SOURCE_PATH can e.g. be a folder like /opt/ros/electric If PATH is not given, uses current folder.

Usage: rosws init [TARGET_PATH [SOURCE_PATH]]?

Options::

  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -c, --catkin          Declare this is a catkin build.
  --cmake-prefix-path=CATKINPP
                        Where to set the CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH
  --continue-on-error   Continue despite checkout errors

Examples:

$ rosws init ~/fuerte /opt/ros/fuerte

set

add or changes one entry from your workspace config The command will infer whether you want to add or modify an entry. If you modify, it will only change the details you provide, keeping those you did not provide. if you only provide a uri, will use the basename of it as localname unless such an element already exists.

The command only changes the configuration, to checkout or update the element, run rosws update afterwards.

Usage: rosws set [localname] [SCM-URI]?  [--(detached|svn|hg|git|bzr)] [--version=VERSION]]

Options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --detached            make an entry unmanaged (default for new element)
  -v VERSION, --version-new=VERSION
                        point SCM to this version
  --git                 make an entry a git entry
  --svn                 make an entry a subversion entry
  --hg                  make an entry a mercurial entry
  --bzr                 make an entry a bazaar entry
  -y, --confirm         Do not ask for confirmation
  -t WORKSPACE, --target-workspace=WORKSPACE
                      which workspace to use

Examples:

$ rosws set robot_model --hg https://kforge.ros.org/robotmodel/robot_model
$ rosws set robot_model --version robot_model-1.7.1
$ rosws set robot_model --detached

merge

The command merges config with given other rosinstall element sets, from files or web uris.

The default workspace will be inferred from context, you can specify one using -t.

By default, when an element in an additional URI has the same local-name as an existing element, the existing element will be replaced. In order to ensure the ordering of elements is as provided in the URI, use the option --merge-kill-append.

Usage: rosws merge [URI] [OPTIONS]

Options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --merge-kill-append   merge by deleting given entry and appending new one
  -k, --merge-keep      (default) merge by keeping existing entry and
                        discarding new one
  -m, --merge-replace   merge by replacing given entry with new one
                        maintaining ordering
  -y, --confirm-all     do not ask for confirmation unless strictly necessary
  -t WORKSPACE, --target-workspace=WORKSPACE
                        which workspace to use

Examples:

$ rosws merge someother.rosinstall

You can use ‘-‘ to pipe in input, as an example:

$ roslocate info robot_mode | rosws merge -

update

update or check out some of your config elements

This command calls the SCM provider to pull changes from remote to your local filesystem. In case the url has changed, the command will ask whether to delete or backup the folder.

Usage: rosws update [localname]*

Options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --delete-changed-uris
                        Delete the local copy of a directory before changing
                        uri.
  --abort-changed-uris  Abort if changed uri detected
  --continue-on-error   Continue despite checkout errors
  --backup-changed-uris=BACKUP_CHANGED
                        backup the local copy of a directory before changing
                        uri to this directory.

Examples:

$ rosws update -t ~/fuerte
$ rosws update robot_model geometry

info

Overview of some entries

The Status (S) column shows
x for missing L for uncommited (local) changes V for difference in version and/or remote URI

The ‘Version-Spec’ column shows what tag, branch or revision was given in the .rosinstall file. The ‘UID’ column shows the unique ID of the current (and specified) version. The ‘URI’ column shows the configured URL of the repo.

If status is V, the difference between what was specified and what is real is shown in the respective column. For SVN entries, the url is split up according to standard layout (trunk/tags/branches). The ROS_PACKAGE_PATH follows the order of the table, earlier entries overlay later entries.

When given one localname, just show the data of one element in list form. This also has the generic properties element which is usually empty.

The --only option accepts keywords: [‘path’, ‘localname’, ‘version’, ‘revision’, ‘cur_revision’, ‘uri’, ‘cur_uri’, ‘scmtype’]

Usage: rosws info [localname]* [OPTIONS]


Options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --data-only           Does not provide explanations
  --no-pkg-path         Suppress ROS_PACKAGE_PATH.
  --pkg-path-only       Shows only ROS_PACKAGE_PATH separated by ':'.
                        Supercedes all other options.
  --only=ONLY           Shows comma-separated lists of only given comma-
                        separated attribute(s).
  --yaml                Shows only version of single entry. Intended for
                        scripting.
  -t WORKSPACE, --target-workspace=WORKSPACE
                        which workspace to use

Examples:

$ rosws info -t ~/ros/fuerte
$ rosws info robot_model
$ rosws info --yaml
$ rosws info --only=path,cur_uri,cur_revision robot_model geometry

status

print the change status of files in some SCM controlled entries. The status columns meanings are as the respective SCM defines them.

Usage: rosws status [localname]*

Options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --untracked           Also shows untracked files
  -t WORKSPACE, --target-workspace=WORKSPACE
                        which workspace to use

diff

print a diff over some SCM controlled entries

Usage: rosws diff [localname]*

Options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -t WORKSPACE, --target-workspace=WORKSPACE
                      which workspace to use

regenerate

remove an entry from your workspace config, without deleting files

this command without options generates files setup.sh, setup.bash and setup.zsh. Note that doing this is unnecessary in general, as these files do not change anymore, unless you change from one ROS distro to another (which you should never do like this, create a separate new workspace instead), or you deleted or modified any of those files accidentally.

Usage: rosws regenerate

Options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -c, --catkin          Declare this is a catkin build.
  --cmake-prefix-path=CATKINPP
                      Where to set the CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH

See also

[REP110]SCM-like rosinstall command structure (http://www.ros.org/reps/rep-0110.html)