Default-content 'plugins.xml' file created for MoveIt IKFast plugin pkg

[gavanderhoorn]

With roscompile at 90b9fde.

I have several (IKFast plugin) pkgs that have a plugins.xml (but with a different name) in some subdirectory under the root. Running roscompile on those pkgs results in a plugins.xml file with default content being created in the root of those packages, and an additional kinematics element being appended to the export section of the package.xml file.

As follows (formatting verbatim):

  <export>
    <moveit_core plugin="${prefix}/sub_dir/plugins.xml"/>
  <kinematics plugin="${prefix}/plugins.xml"/></export>

As this is a MoveIt plugin, I expect the moveit_core export to be correct. Why is roscompile adding a kinematics entry here?

[DLu]

The trouble likely stems from a plugin declaration in your code. Can you link me to a IKFast plugin example?

[gavanderhoorn]

It's the ros-industrial/abb/abb_irb2400_moveit_plugins package.

[DLu]

Ok, so it seems there's some moveit specific logic here that I am unfamilliar with.

Both the plugin declaration and the plugin xml declare that the base class is in the kinematics package, which is why it tries to add the kinematics export.

Is there a guideline for creating moveit-specific plugins that says to use moveit_core instead of kinematics?

[gavanderhoorn]

This pkg was generated by moveit_ikfast, and I've no idea why it does that.

[DLu]

Maybe @davetcoleman has insight?

[gavanderhoorn]

This pkg was generated by moveit_ikfast [..]

I did change the layout.

[DLu]

You mean the folder structure? That shouldn't matter.

[davetcoleman]

I am not sure where you got that <kinematics> tag from, I don't think I've ever seen it before. Perhaps it was a Find-Replace-All mistake, or someone added it not knowing what they were doing?

From my Baxter ikfast CMakeLists, I only export a moveit_core tag here

And in the moveit_ikfast script, it only adds the moveit_core tag here

[DLu]

As I mentioned above, both the plugin declaration and the plugin xml declare that the base class is in the kinematics package, which is why it tries to add the kinematics export.

So the roscompile tool thinks that the export tag should be kinematics. However, the ikfast tool uses moveit_core. My question is why ikfast calls it moveit_core when the actual plugin is declared with the kinematics package.

[davetcoleman]

I think there is some legacy code that is causing this from the old arm_navigation package. Now days the KinematicsBase class lives in moveit_core/KinematicsBase

The problem is that to fix this issue now would be a big backwards compatibility nightmare.

[gavanderhoorn]

Ok, so a work-around would be for roscompile to treat this as a special case, and not use its normal logic to determine the correct export entry?

[DLu]

Yeah, I agree special case is the way to go.