REP: 127 Title: Specification of package manifest format Author: Dirk Thomas Status: Accepted Type: Standards Track Content-Type: text/x-rst Created: 12-Sep-2012 Post-History: 22-Sep-2012
This REP specifies a new package manifest format, initially released
with Groovy Galapagos. It is only relevant for packages using the new
catkin buildsystem. The new package.xml file replaces
stack.xml and manifest.xml, used with the earlier rosbuild
tools.
The decision to remove the concept of stacks, leaving only packages
[6], [7], drove the decision to merge the information contained in
both stack.xml and manifest.xml.
The package.xml contains several kinds of information:
- descriptive data (i.e. a description, maintainer)
- dependencies on other ROS and system packages
- meta-information (i.e. the author and website)
- packaging information (i.e. the version)
Instead of modifying the semantics and content of the old files a new filename is chosen to make it possible to distinguish old and new packages without parsing the contents of the xml file.
Each package has one package.xml which contains all necessary
data, instead of multiple separate files with semantically grouped
information. Several tools, like the buildfarm and the wiki, need to
use that information. They only need to fetch one file from each
source package.
All data are stored in atomic units for automated processing. For example, names and email addresses are stored separately.
Besides XML, which was used for stack.xml and manifest.xml,
other formats were considered. YAML was investigated extensively
during the Fuerte cycle, because it is easier for humans to read.
Since benchmark results [3] showed YAML parsing in Python to be
ten times slower, the XML format remains.
While plain text information can be stored in either attributes or tags the later is preferred for readability reasons.
Additional, mostly optional, information is stored in attributes of the related tag instead of grouping multiple tags inside a parent tag.
The allowed package.xml elements are tightly restricted. That
way, tools can reliably detect errors and provide meaningful error
messages should a user misspell any of the tags defined here.
Within the <export> element, tools may define additional tags,
free from those restrictions.
If new top-level tags are needed, the format attribute of the
<package> tag provides a migration path.
Package names are used in various contexts:
All ROS package names must be mapped to these conventions without generating collision. Therefore only lower case letters (a-z), numbers (0-9) and one delimiting character (_) can be used. The additional restriction that the first character be a letter is due to the requirements of some languages for naming packages or namespaces.
The package manifest is an XML file, with restricted syntax.
The only top-level element allowed is <package>. Immediately
subordinate to that are several required or optional elements, defined
here. No other tags are permitted directly under the <package>
element.
The <package> tag is the unique top-level tag in a package.xml
file. All other tags are nested under it.
format="NUMBER"(optional)Specifying the
package.xmlformat being used. If not set, the defaultformat="1"is assumed. That is the only format described here. If you are using a different format, please refer to the relevant specification. REP-0140 [2] will describe format two.
The required tags in a package.xml file provide package meta-data:
Optional, but recommended, meta-data include the names of the original authors and links to support documentation.
The dependencies and relations to other packages and system packages have been discussed in [7] and are described using:
There is a need for additional meta-data in the manifest for other tools that work with packages, like message generators and plugin discovery. All of this dynamic information is stored in tags under a single tag:
Tool providers are responsible for defining the tag structure their tool requires.
<package>
<name>my_package</name>
<version>1.2.3</version>
<description>
ROS communications-related packages, including core client
libraries (roscpp, rospy, roslisp) and graph introspection tools
(rostopic, rosnode, rosservice, rosparam).
</description>
<maintainer email="[email protected]">Someone</maintainer>
<license>BSD</license>
<license>LGPL</license>
<url type="website">http://wiki.ros.org/my_package</url>
<url type="bugtracker">http://www.github.com/my_org/my_package/issues</url>
<author>John Doe</author>
<author email="[email protected]">Jane Doe</author>
<buildtool_depend>catkin</buildtool_depend>
<build_depend version_gte="1.1" version_lt="2.0">genmsg</build_depend>
<build_depend>libgstreamer0.10-dev</build_depend>
<run_depend>libgstreamer0.10-0</run_depend>
<test_depend>gtest</test_depend>
<conflict>my_old_package</conflict>
<export>
...
</export>
</package>
The package name must start with a letter and contain only lowercase alphabetic, numeric or underscore characters [1]. The package name should be unique within the ROS community. It may differ from the folder name into which it is checked out, but that is not recommended.
The version number of the package in the format MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH
where each part is numeric only.
The description of the package. It can consist of multiple lines and may contain XHTML. But depending on where the description is used XML tags and multiple whitespaces might be stripped.
The name of the person maintaining the package. All packages require a maintainer. For orphaned packages see below.
email="[email protected]"(required)Email address of the maintainer.
An orphaned package is one with no current maintainer. Orphaned
packages should have their maintainer set to ROS Community
<[email protected]>. These packages will be maintained by
the ROS Community as a whole until a volunteer takes over maintenance.
<maintainer email="[email protected]">ROS Community</maintainer>
Name of license for this package, e.g. BSD, GPL, LGPL. In order to
assist machine readability, only include the license name in this tag.
For multiple licenses multiple separate tags must be used. A package
will have multiple licenses if different source files have different
licenses. Every license occurring in the source files should have
a corresponding <license> tag. For any explanatory text about
licensing caveats, please use the <description> tag.
Most common open-source licenses are described on the OSI website.
Commonly used license strings:
- Apache 2.0
- BSD
- Boost Software License
- GPLv2
- GPLv3
- LGPLv2.1
- LGPLv3
- MIT
- Mozilla Public License Version 1.1
A Uniform Resource Locator for the package's website, bug tracker or source repository.
It is a good idea to include <url> tags pointing users to these
resources. The website is commonly a wiki page on ros.org where
users can find and update information about the package.
type="TYPE"(optional)The type should be one of the following identifiers:
website(default),bugtrackerorrepository.
The name of a person who is an author of the package, as acknowledgement of their work and for questions.
email="[email protected]"(optional)Email address of author.
Declares a rosdep key or ROS package name that this package requires at build-time.
The build and buildtool dependencies are used to determine
the build order of multiple packages.
All dependencies and relationships may restrict their applicability to particular versions. For each comparison operator an attribute can be used. Two of these attributes can be used together to describe a version range.
version_lt="VERSION"(optional)The dependency to the package is restricted to versions less than the stated version number.
version_lte="VERSION"(optional)The dependency to the package is restricted to versions less or equal than the stated version number.
version_eq="VERSION"(optional)The dependency to the package is restricted to a version equal than the stated version number.
version_gte="VERSION"(optional)The dependency to the package is restricted to versions greater or equal than the stated version number.
version_gt="VERSION"(optional)The dependency to the package is restricted to versions greater than the stated version number.
Declares a rosdep key or ROS package name for a tool that is executed during the build process. For cross-compilation, one must distinguish these from normal build dependencies, which may be linked with your package and must be compiled for the target architecture, not the build system.
The same attributes as for <build_depend> (multiple).
Declares a rosdep key or ROS package name that this package needs either at run-time or as part of some exported build interface.
The <run_depend> declares two different types of package
dependencies. One is for shared libraries, executables, Python
modules, launch scripts and other files required for running your
package.
The second type of <run_depend> is for transitive build
dependencies. A common example is when one of your dependencies
provides a header file included in some header exported by your
package. Even if your package does not use that header when building
itself, other packages depending on your header will require those
transitive dependencies when they are built.
The same attributes as for <build_depend> (multiple).
Declares a rosdep key or ROS package name that your package needs for running its unit tests.
A <test_depend> may not reference any package also declared using
a <build_depend>, <buildtool_depend> or <run_depend>.
The same attributes as for <build_depend> (multiple).
Declares a rosdep key or ROS package name with which your package
conflicts. This package and the conflicting package cannot be
installed at the same time. This maps to conflicts for both
dpkg and rpms.
For a detailed explanation how these relationships are used see [4] and [5].
The same attributes as for <build_depend> (multiple).
Declares a rosdep key or ROS package name that your package replaces.
This maps to Replaces for dpkg and Obsoletes for rpms.
The same attributes as for <build_depend> (multiple).
This tag serves as a container for additional information various packages and subsystems need to embed. To avoid potential collisions packages must use their package name as their tag name inside the export block. The content of that tag is up to the package to define and use.
Existing rosbuild export tags for tools using pluginlib remain
unchanged. For example, a package which implements an rviz plugin
might include this:
<export>
<rviz plugin="${prefix}/plugin_description.xml"/>
</export>
The following are some tags used within an <export> for various
package and message generation tasks.
This empty tag indicates that your package contains no architecture-specific files.
This tag indicates that your package is deprecated, enabling tools to notify users about that fact. The tag may be empty or may optionally contain an arbitrary text providing user more information about the deprecation:
<export>
<deprecated>
This package will be removed in ROS Hydro. Instead, use package
FOO, which provides similar features with a different API.
</deprecated>
</export>
The content defines the identifier for the language bindings
generated by this package, i.e. in gencpp this is set to cpp:
<export> <message_generator>cpp</message_generator> </export>
This empty tag declares a special kind of catkin package used for
grouping other packages. Users who install the Debian or RPM package
for a catkin metapackage will also get all the packages directly or
indirectly included in its group. Metapackages may not install any
code or other files, although package.xml does get installed
automatically. They can depend on other metapackages, if desired, but
regular catkin packages cannot.
Metapackages can be used to resolve dependencies declared by legacy rosbuild stacks not yet converted to catkin. Catkin packages must depend directly on the packages they use, not on any metapackages.
A good use for metapackages is to group the major components of your robot and then provide a comprehensive grouping for your whole system.
Every metapackage must have a CMakeLists.txt containing these
commands:
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 2.8.3) project(PACKAGE_NAME) find_package(catkin REQUIRED) catkin_metapackage()
Because the metapackage CMakeLists.txt contains a catkin macro,
its package.xml must declare a buildtool dependency on catkin:
<buildtool_depend>catkin</buildtool_depend>
Additional buildtool, build or test dependencies are not permitted.
Metapackages list all packages or other metapackages in their group
using <run_depend> tags:
<run_depend>your_custom_msgs</run_depend> <run_depend>your_server_node</run_depend> <run_depend>your_utils</run_depend>
- Authors are now split into authors and maintainers.
- Multiple people and their emails are specified in separate tags and attributes.
- Authors are now optional.
- Maintainers must provide an email address.
- At least one maintainer is now required.
- Multiple licenses can now be used, even though a single license per package is desired.
- Multiple
urltags can be specified withtypeattributes indicating their meanings.- The former
dependandrosdephave been unified, but also split into various types of dependencies.- The
exporttag:
- The
cpptag has been dropped, it is handled by catkin.- The
roslangtag has been dropped, it is handled by catkin.
- The
copyrighttag has been dropped.- The
logotag has been dropped.- The
reviewtag has been dropped, that information will be stored on the website of that package.- The
versioncontroltag has been dropped.
All tools using stack.xml and manifest.xml are updated to work
with package.xml files.
Migration to the new format only affects packages being converted to catkin. Existing rosbuild packages remain the same. Rosdep distinguishes between catkin and rosbuild and returns the correct system dependencies.
List of tools affected by the specification (which is very like not complete):
- bloom
- buildfarm
- catkin
- roscd
- rosdep
- rosdoc
- roslaunch
- roslib
- rospack
- rospkg
- rosrun
- rosstack
Several tools are affected by the transition from packaging packages instead of stacks and not really by the specification of the format for the package information.
Additional meta-information can be added within the export tag, as
needed.
New features related to the infrastructure can be specified and
integrated using additional tags and attributes, but this requires
introducing a new <package> format number.
| [1] | Naming conventions (http://www.ros.org/wiki/ROS/Patterns/Conventions#Naming_ROS_Resources) |
| [2] | REP-0140 (http://ros.org/reps/rep-0140) |
| [3] | Comparison between YAML and XML for manifests (ros/catkin#128) |
| [4] | (1, 2) Declaring relationships between packages (Debian Policy Manual) (http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-relationships.html) |
| [5] | (1, 2) Advances RPM Packaging (Fedora Documentation) (http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora_Draft_Documentation/0.1/html/RPM_Guide/ch-advanced-packaging.html) |
| [6] | Buildsystem mailing list discussion: "Request for comment REP 127" |
| [7] | (1, 2) Buildsystem mailing list discussion: "Dependency tag types for REP 127" |
This document has been placed in the public domain.