Installation

ROSLink consists of two components:

• helium, the code to be used in legacy projects
• roslink, a set of API to perform the marshalling between the data types used in the legacy code and the ROS types, e.g. for declaring that std::string should be mapped to std_msgs::String

Download each component from

https://sourceforge.net/projects/roslink/files/

Compilation of ROSlink

As an initial phase, compile both components on your ROS machine:

• extract the zip files in your ros workspace (e.g. ~./ros_workspace), and enter your workspace directory
• $ cd helium
• $ cmake .
• $ make
• $ cd ../roslink
• $ cmake .
• $ make

helium needs to be compiled on the legacy system as well. Either:

• compile all the cpp files of the directory src together as a library, and then link your code against it

or

• compile all the cpp files of the directory src together with your code

Procedure differs depending on your OS / compiler.

• vs.zip provides a Visual Studio Express 2010.
• Makefile.qnx inside helium.zip provides a minimal Makefile for QNX
• Makfile.mingw inside helium.zip provides a minimal Makefile for MinGW

Tests

ROSLink comes with some examples programs.
Before running the tests, you need to launch lmaster , which is the ROSLink equivalent of roscore:

• $ rosrun helium lmaster

Each test consists in three programs: a legacy program, a ROS node used to link the legacy code with ROS, and a ROS node used for testing (e.g. a subscriber if the legacy program is a publisher)
You can test the following cases (using different terminals / terminal tabs for each command)

1. A legacy publisher, and a ROS subscriber
   • $ rosrun roslink lPublisher
   • $ rosrun roslink mPublisher
   • $ rosrun roslink rSubscriber
2. A legacy subscriber, and a ROS publisher
   • $ rosrun roslink lSubscriber
   • $ rosrun roslink mSubscriber
   • $ rosrun roslink rPublisher
3. A legacy server, and a ROS client
   • $ rosrun roslink lServer
   • $ rosrun roslink mServer
   • $ rosrun roslink rClient 4 5
4. A legacy client, and a ROS server
   • $ rosrun roslink rServer
   • $ rosrun roslink mClient
   • $ rosrun roslink lClient 4 5

Please then see the code of these examples, located in the examples folder of roslink
The examples closely parallel the ROS tutorials ( see topics
and services
)