Graceful failure when envoking catkin_make from wrong directory

[hauptmech]

I followed the catkin tutorials and lost a bit of time trying to understand why nothing was working when executing the following sequence.

mkdir -p ~/catkin_ws/src
cd ~/catkin_ws
catkin_make
cd src
catkin_create_pkg beginner_tutorials std_msgs rospy roscpp
cd beginner_tutorials
#...add src/*.cpp and modify CMakeFiles.txt
catkin_make

catkin_make happily created a new workspace in place which to me, a newb, looked plausible. Of course no amount of catkin_make/cmake/make was useful from ~/catkin_ws/src/beginner_tutorials/

It would be great if catkin_make would either have an explicit command to create a new workspace or check whether it's located in a workspace and give the user a hint...

[tkruse]

rosmake-like global invocation of catkin_make is not currently possible, not even part of the current catkin design. See #304. I believe there already once was a request to prevent catkin_make from running when the current folder did not contain a src folder, or contained a package.xml.

Generally these heuristics are not perfect however, it would be better if catkin_make checked that the source space it uses has a valid catkin CMakeLists.txt, whatever that means.

[hauptmech]

If the catkin workspace root always lacks a CMakeFiles.txt, most of the subdirectories the novice user will be in will have CMakeFiles.txt. The following patch works if this is the case:

--- /home/teh/tmp/catkin_make   2013-01-22 17:00:20.632605653 +0100
+++ /opt/ros/groovy/bin/catkin_make 2013-01-22 17:11:30.939046371 +0100
@@ -26,6 +26,12 @@
         return 'The specified base path "%s" does not exist' % base_path
     print('Base path: %s' % base_path)

+    # test if we are in subdirectory of workspace
+    if os.path.exists(os.path.join(base_path,'CMakeLists.txt')):
+        retstr = 'You appear to be in a package directory\n'
+        retstr += 'Run catkin_make from your catkin workspace root directory!'
+        return retstr
+    
     # determine source space
     source_path = os.path.join(base_path, 'src')
     if args.source:

[hauptmech]

My problem was that global invocation of catkin_make IS possible (ie it's in the os execution path) but the fact that it behaves correctly only when invoked from a specific location was not well enough documented.

I suspect that even when it is well documented it will still be a trap for new users.

[tkruse]

Sure, what I meant was "global invocation of catkin that does something useful". That's not possible, but could be possible with e.g. an advertised build space in the development environment.