catkin_make not creating a catkin workspace for ROS through Robostack (Conda) environment

Question

I've recently been encountering an issue when trying to create a working catkin workspace for ROS through RoboStack.

Robostack is utilized to create a working ROS environment installed in Conda.

When activating the environment in Conda, I have been able to successfully very that ROS is working when I run the set ros command through the miniconda command prompt:

(robostackenv) C:\.....>set ros

ROS_DISTRO=noetic
ROS_ETC_DIR=C:\Users\user\miniconda3\envs\robostackenv\Library\etc\ros
ROS_IP=127.0.0.1
ROS_MASTER_URI=http://127.0.0.1:11311
ROS_OS_OVERRIDE=conda:win64
ROS_PACKAGE_PATH=C:\Users\user\miniconda3\envs\robostackenv\Library\share
ROS_PYTHON_VERSION=3
ROS_ROOT=C:/Users/user/miniconda3/envs/robostackenv/Library/share/ros
ROS_VERSION=1

I've also installed various extensions to succesfully utilize ROS within VSCode (NOT the full IDE Visual Studio one). These extensions include:

• ROS
• C/C++ (VsCode is configured with a GCC compiler, which allows it to run C//C++ files already
• CMake

However, for some reason I can't create a workspace for ROS. I've already created a catkin_workspace and src folder by:

(robostackenv) C:\.....>robostackenv\mkdir catkin_workspace
(robostackenv) C:\.....>robostackenv\catkin_workspace\mkdir src

But every time I try to utilize catkin_make within the main workspace directory, it ends up failing:

(robostackenv) C:\Users\user\ProgrammingProjects\robostackenv\catkin_workspace>catkin_make
Base path: C:\Users\user\ProgrammingProjects\robostackenv\catkin_workspace
Source space: C:\Users\user\ProgrammingProjects\robostackenv\catkin_workspace\src
Build space: C:\Users\user\ProgrammingProjects\robostackenv\catkin_workspace\build
Devel space: C:\Users\user\ProgrammingProjects\robostackenv\catkin_workspace\devel
Install space: C:\Users\user\ProgrammingProjects\robostackenv\catkin_workspace\install
Copying file from "C:\Users\user\miniconda3\envs\robostackenv\Library\share\catkin\cmake\toplevel.cmake" to "C:\Users\user\ProgrammingProjects\robostackenv\catkin_workspace\src\CMakeLists.txt"
####
#### Running command: "cmake C:\Users\user\ProgrammingProjects\robostackenv\catkin_workspace\src -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo -DCATKIN_DEVEL_PREFIX=C:\Users\user\ProgrammingProjects\robostackenv\catkin_workspace\devel -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=C:\Users\user\ProgrammingProjects\robostackenv\catkin_workspace\install -G NMake Makefiles" in "C:\Users\user\ProgrammingProjects\robostackenv\catkin_workspace\build"
####
CMake Error at CMakeLists.txt:6 (project):
  Running

   'nmake' '-?'

  failed with:

   The system cannot find the file specified


CMake Error: CMAKE_C_COMPILER not set, after EnableLanguage
CMake Error: CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER not set, after EnableLanguage
-- Configuring incomplete, errors occurred!
See also "C:/Users/user/ProgrammingProjects/robostackenv/catkin_workspace/build/CMakeFiles/CMakeOutput.log".
Invoking "cmake" failed

What am I doing that's wrong? ROS is installed properly with RoboStack, set ros shows that it works, my files are named corrently, what gives?

If I run, catkin_init_workspace, it'll generate a CMakeLists.txt file, but that is it.

Answer 1

Did you install a C/C++ compiler, make and CMake? Not the VS Code extensions, the programs themselves.

Be sure also to add them into the Windows path environment variable.

Answer 2

conda-forge/robostack packages on Windows are built with Visual Studio compiler, so in general (beside some simple specific cases) you can't use GCC to compile C++ software that uses them. You need to install the VS2019 or VS2022 C++ compiler, and then install the vs2019_win-64 or vs2022_win-64 conda package to develop C++ software on Windows using catkin.

See https://robostack.github.io/GettingStarted.html#installation-tools-for-local-development for more info.