rclnodejs-cli

Standalone commandline tools and ros2 cli extension for use with the ROS2 rclnodejs client library.

• create-package
• generate-ros-messages

Prerequisites

• ROS2 Foxy or greater including the colcon build tools
• Node.js versions 14.0-19.X
• npm or yarn package manager
• A shell environment that includes ROS2. See Configuring a ROS2 Environment for more info.

Installation

Install the rclnodejs-cli package globally or alternatively use npx to run rclnodejs-cli directly from a shell.

Note: Your shell environment should include ROS2.

To install rclnodejs-cli globally run the following command from a shell:

 npm install -g rclnodejs-cli

Optional

You can extend the ros2 cli with additional commands and options from this package by sourcing the `install/setup.[bat,bash,ps1,sh] file.

On Linux run:

 source <rclnodejs-cli-dir>/install/setup.bash

On Windows run:

 <rclnodejs-cli-dir>\install\setup.bat
or
<rclnodejs-cli-dir>\install\setup.ps1

For more information on using an rclnodejs-cli tool from the ros2 cli see the references to tool/command user-guides below.

Usage

List available commands

If rclnodejs-cli is installed globally run:

 rclnodejs-cli -h

Alternatively use npx as shown:

 npx rclnodejs-cli -h

The default commandline output follows:

 _ _ _
_ __ ___| |_ __ ___ __| | ___ (_)___
| '__/ __| | '_ \ / _ \ / _` |/ _ \| / __|
| | | (__| | | | | (_) | (_| | __/| \__ \
|_| \___|_|_| |_|\___/ \__,_|\___|/ |___/
|__/
Usage: rclnodejs [command] [options]
Options:
-h, --help display help for command
Commands:
create-package <package-name> [options] Create a ROS2 package for Nodejs development.
generate-ros-messages Generate JavaScript code from ROS2 IDL interfaces
help [command] display help for command

List a subcommand details

 rclnodejs-cli <subcommand> -h
or
npx rclnodejs-cli <subcommand> -h

Example

 rclnodejs-cli create-package -h
or
npx rclnodejs-cli create-package -h

Commands

create-package command

The rclnodejs-cli create-package command creates a hybrid ROS2-Nodejs package that can coexist and participate with other ROS2 packages in a ROS2 workspace and be run using the ROS2 launch facility. A ROS2-Nodejs package consist of a ROS2 package, specifically an ament-cmake ROS2 package, overlaid with a Nodejs package.

Learn more about the create-package tool.

generate-ros-messages command

Generate JavaScript messages corresponding to the interfaces (.IDL) in your ROS2 environment. Run this command from the root folder of a Nodejs package that includes rlcnodejs as a dependency. The JavaScript message files are created in the node_modules/rclnodejs/generated/ folder of the current Nodejs package.

Learn more about the generate-ros-messages tool.

Getting Help / Providing Feedback

Please post bug reports, feature requests and general discussion topics to the rclnodejs-cli project on github.

Contributors

Wayne Parrott
Minggang Wang