No executable found in a released Debian package

Question

Hello, thanks for the help!

I tried to release two ROS packages recently. Let's focus on the one called lyap_control. I had my upstream repository, which I built with catkin_make. The package was indexed (per here) and then released (per here).

To test it post-release, I installed the package with 'sudo apt-get install ros-indigo-lyap-control'. So far so good. But, when I try to run it with 'rosrun lyap_control controller', it can't find the package. Tab complete doesn't work for controller but it does work with lyap_control. So I guess it's finding the package but not the executable.

Browsing the package files in /opt/ros/indigo, there's not much there. There's a msg folder, cmake folder, and package.xml in /share. But no cpp files and no executables, as far as I can tell.

So what do I have to do to get the debian released properly? I would strongly prefer if the user didn't have to clone my repo and build from source.

Thanks!

P.S. my gut feeling is that the catkin work space is in the wrong place. I'm working with Ubuntu 14.04 and Ros-Indigo.

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Originally posted by AndyZe on ROS Answers with karma: 2331 on 2015-03-14

Post score: 1

Answer 1

In the CMakeLists.txt file in your package, you haven't specified any Install Targets. Work on Catkin's tutorial for doing that, test with install option (i.e. catkin_make install) to check the specified targets are created in the generated install folder. If things go well then release a new version.

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Originally posted by 130s with karma: 10937 on 2015-03-14

This answer was ACCEPTED on the original site

Post score: 2

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Original comments

Comment by gvdhoorn on 2015-03-15:
Just to add to this, you say:

[..] there's not much there. There's a msg folder, cmake folder, and package.xml in /share. But no cpp files and no executables [..]

Note that typically, pkgs don't install their sources, and binaries go into lib/PKG_NAME, not share/.

Comment by AndyZe on 2015-04-17:
It worked, 130s. Thanks. The only thing I can add for others is to make sure your CMakeLists.txt is in the correct order. It can matter.

Comment by AndyZe on 2016-11-09:
1.5 years later... I'm also figuring out that if you want to catkin_make install and then test the installation, you need to open a new terminal window and source the installation folder, e.g. source /home/andy/Desktop/catkin_ws/install/setup.bash