Rosdep

ROS Package Dependencies

ROS packages have two types of dependencies: build dependencies and run dependencies.

The rosdep tool will check for a package's missing dependencies, download them, and install them.

To check for missing dependencies in a ROS package:

$ rosdep check <package name>

Note : In order for the command to work, the workspace must be first sourced with source devel/setup.bash .

This gives you a list of the system dependencies that are missing, and tells you where to get them.

To have rosdep install packages, invoke the following command from the root of the catkin workspace

$ rosdep install -i <package name>

simple_arm Package Dependencies

Fortunately, the build and run dependencies for simple_arm package have been already installed in the workspace. You can double-check using rosdep check :

$ cd /home/workspace/catkin_ws/ 
$ source devel/setup.bash
$ rosdep check simple_arm

Output: All system dependencies have been satisfied.

What’s next?

With all of the packages properly installed, you will now learn more about ROS packages by creating yours from scratch, in preparation for writing your own nodes!