Create ROS Workspace¶

In this exercise, we will create and build an empty ROS workspace.

Motivation¶

Any ROS project begins with making a workspace. In this workspace, you will put all the things related to this particular project. In this module we will create the workspace where we will build the components of our Scan-N-Plan application.

Reference Example¶

Steps to creating a workspace: Creating a Workspace

Further Information and Resources¶

Additional details on what a ROS environment consists of and some basic checks you can run: Configuring a ROS2 Environment

Scan-N-Plan Application: Problem Statement¶

We have a good installation of ROS, and we need to take the first step to setting up our particular application. Your goal is to create a workspace for your application and its supplements.

Scan-N-Plan Application: Guidance¶

Create a Workspace¶

Close any open terminal windows. Open a new terminal and source the “foxy” distribution.
```
source /opt/ros/foxy/setup.bash
```
Create the root workspace directory. Note that the required structure is a top-level directory and a src/ directory one level down. The directory name is a completely free choice. We will use ros2_ws throughout these tutorials.
```
cd ~/
mkdir --parents ros2_ws/src
cd ros2_ws
ls
```
Build the workspace from the workspace root-directory (ros2_ws).
```
colcon build
ls
```
- See that the ros2_ws directory now contains additional directories (build, install, log).
- colcon build must always be run from the root of your workspace directory.
- Don’t run colcon build from a terminal where you’ve also sourced this workspace’s setup file. Use a dedicated terminal for building.
These new directories can be safely deleted at any time. This is sometimes used to resolve unusual build errors by “starting with a clean slate”. Note that colcon never changes any files in the src directory. Re-run colcon build to re-create the build/install/log directories.
```
rm -r build/ install/ log/
ls
colcon build
ls
```
Make the contents of this workspace visible to ROS. Source the setup file in the install directory.
```
source ~/ros2_ws/install/setup.bash
```
- This file MUST be sourced for every new terminal.
- This file will automatically include the ROS environment that was active when you first built this workspace. Make sure you have sourced the correct ROS distribution before building a new workspace for the first time!