Creating a ROS Package by Hand
From Lofaro Lab Wiki
Close all opened terminals.
1) In a terminal window, navigate to your catkin workspace:
cd ~/catkin_ws
2) Source the setup file:
source ./deevel/setup.bash
3) Create a folder called foobar in the src folder, and navigate into it:
mkdir -p src/foobar cd src/foobar
4) Create the file packages.xml:
gedit package.xml
In the editor paste the following:
<package> <name>foobar</name> <version>1.2.4</version> <description> This package provides foo capability. </description> <maintainer email="foobar@foo.bar.willowgarage.com">PR-foobar</maintainer> <license>BSD</license> <buildtool_depend>catkin</buildtool_depend> <build_depend>roscpp</build_depend> <build_depend>std_msgs</build_depend> <run_depend>roscpp</run_depend> <run_depend>std_msgs</run_depend> </package>
Save the file and close the editor.
5) To check that the package.xml was sucessful, have ROS find it:
rospack find foobar
Something like "/home/gmustudent/catkin_ws/src/foobar" will print
6) Create the file CMakeLists.txt:
gedit CMakeLists.txt
In the editor paste the following:
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 2.8.3) project(foobar) find_package(catkin REQUIRED roscpp std_msgs) catkin_package()
Save the file and close the editor.
7) To check that both files are in the foobar folder:
ls
This should display "CMakeLists.txt Package.xml"
These files don't do anything but they are the minimum needed for creating a ROS Package.