We probably don't want a catkin_tools dependency here. Given the simplicity of what's being done, consider just using cmake; make directly?

I could try, but remember this is only to generate the data. In other words, it's an utility script that the developer would run to provide/update the tests, but it's not a dependency of the package strictly speaking.

I'd try doing that though, but where should I run cmake from? I'd like to keep things tidy and clean, with the build directory in the build/PACKAGE folder under the workspace.

You can use catkin_make or catkin_make_isolated since this package already depends on catkin. It doesn't depend on catkin_tools (and shouldn't) so that command is not available (if the user hasn't installed it manually).

Fair enough, I'll change it to catkin_make or catkin_make_isolated, whatever is faster to execute.

Done, using catkin_make.

add_message_files can be called more than once. Would it make sense to have a single block for all the common ones, and then only do conditionally the ones that are different (eg Renamed1/Renamed2)?

Note also that CMake lets you do fun stuff like this:

set(msglist_msg_gen1 Constants.msg Converged.msg ...)
add_message_files(
  DIRECTORY ${MSG_DIRECTORY}
  FILES ${msglist_${MSG_DIRECTORY}}
)

Ok, that makes sense... will do

Done.

I create a list of common messages, and separate list for each generation. Then I use the MSG_DIRECTORY macro to select the list directly, with no if-else statements. Now is much more compact and cleaner.

This new doc is great. Thank you for putting this together.

Since not all workspaces can be built by catkin_make it might be better to use catkin_make_isolated?

That's why I started with catkin build, but I see your point. 😃

I'd need some time to re-adapt it to cakin_make_isolated, but hopefully it's a single line change.

I see you're talking about the README.md, but I'm also using catkin_make on the scripts... so they should be same because we can't mix different building tools.

I honestly don't know which one is a better option. I prefer catkin_make because I can pass --only-pkg-with-deps test_rosbag to build it faster. I could update the README.md to do the same.

With catkin_make_isolated the --only-pkg-with-deps test_rosbag option needs --install and a quick test has failed for me because of missed dependencies (like generate_messages). I don't use catkin_make_isolated often, so I'm not very familiar with the environment setup I need to make it work properly.

Yes, the scripts should use catkin_make_isolated too.

The problem is that catkin_make doesn't work for arbitrary workspaces (even if each package is "correct"). catkin_make_isolated scales to work with any workspace (if each package is "correct"). Therefore I think we should use that. The usage is pretty much the same - the setup file to source will just be in devel_isolated/setup.bash - no need to use --install.

I am happy to provide feedback if you post more information about your workspace and how it fails.

Never mind, I got it to work. This is what I did wrong:

1. I called catkin_make_isolated with --pkg from a clean ws. And according with the documentation I need to call cakin_make_isolated w/o --pkg once first.

  --pkg PKGNAME [PKGNAME ...]
                        Invoke 'make' on specific packages (only after
                        catkin_make_isolated has been invoked before with the
                        same install flag)

Otherwise I have an error saying that cmake fails, which makes sense:

==> cmake /home/eperdomo/dev/ws/clearpath_ws/src/ros_comm/test/test_rosbag -DCATKIN_DEVEL_PREFIX=/home/eperdomo/dev/ws/clearpath_ws/devel_isolated/test_rosbag -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/home/eperdomo/dev/ws/clearpath_ws/install_isolated -G Unix Makefiles in '/home/eperdomo/dev/ws/clearpath_ws/build_isolated/test_rosbag'
Unhandled exception of type 'OSError':
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/opt/ros/indigo/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/catkin/builder.py", line 965, in build_workspace_isolated
    number=index + 1, of=len(ordered_packages)
  File "/opt/ros/indigo/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/catkin/builder.py", line 665, in build_package
    destdir=destdir, use_ninja=use_ninja
  File "/opt/ros/indigo/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/catkin/builder.py", line 397, in build_catkin_package
    run_command_colorized(cmake_cmd, build_dir, quiet, add_env=add_env)
  File "/opt/ros/indigo/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/catkin/builder.py", line 187, in run_command_colorized
    run_command(cmd, cwd, quiet=quiet, colorize=True, add_env=add_env)
  File "/opt/ros/indigo/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/catkin/builder.py", line 205, in run_command
    raise OSError("Failed command '%s': %s" % (cmd, e))
OSError: Failed command '['/home/eperdomo/dev/ws/clearpath_ws/devel_isolated/rosbag/env.sh', 'cmake', '/home/eperdomo/dev/ws/clearpath_ws/src/ros_comm/test/test_rosbag', '-DCATKIN_DEVEL_PREFIX=/home/eperdomo/dev/ws/clearpath_ws/devel_isolated/test_rosbag', '-DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/home/eperdomo/dev/ws/clearpath_ws/install_isolated', '-G', 'Unix Makefiles']': [Errno 2] No such file or directory
<== Failed to process package 'test_rosbag': 
  Failed command '['/home/eperdomo/dev/ws/clearpath_ws/devel_isolated/rosbag/env.sh', 'cmake', '/home/eperdomo/dev/ws/clearpath_ws/src/ros_comm/test/test_rosbag', '-DCATKIN_DEVEL_PREFIX=/home/eperdomo/dev/ws/clearpath_ws/devel_isolated/test_rosbag', '-DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/home/eperdomo/dev/ws/clearpath_ws/install_isolated', '-G', 'Unix Makefiles']': [Errno 2] No such file or directory
Command failed, exiting.

2. I was trying to pass --only-pkg-with-deps, which as you're saying I don't need. In fact, I can now use --pkg.

  --only-pkg-with-deps ONLY_PKG_WITH_DEPS [ONLY_PKG_WITH_DEPS ...]
                        Only consider the specific packages and their
                        recursive dependencies and ignore all other packages
                        in the works

With this one the error was a missed dependency.

Either way, I've just updated the PR to use catkin_make_isolated.