understanding source command and in tutorials

Question

I have done all the beginner level tutorials of ROS successfully ,and I have some questions about the source command . Please tell me if I am wrong in my sentences.

1. After each time I create the catkin workspace: source ~/catkin_ws/devel/setup.bash . But as I want to do this every time, then I did echo "source ~/catkin_ws/devel/setup.bash" >> ~/.bashrc
2. After each time I create a catkin package following the tutorial: source /opt/ros/indigo/setup.bash. This is not necesary to do with >> ~/.bashrc
3. After each time I do catkin_make: source ./devel/setup.bash

Am I wrong? Are there other cases for doing source? Is neccessary to do these every time? Thanks in advance.

---

Originally posted by marilia15 on ROS Answers with karma: 104 on 2015-03-21

Post score: 1

Answer 1

sourcing a 'setup.bash' file, whether the base ROS one in /opt/ros/indigo, or the one in you workspace (devel/setup.bash), is only necessary once per terminal (instance of bash shell) that you open. This will load the ROS environment, giving you access to ros* and catkin* commands.

Therefore, if you add it to ~/.bashrc, you will only need to run source if you want to SWITCH workspaces.

---

Originally posted by paulbovbel with karma: 4518 on 2015-03-22

This answer was ACCEPTED on the original site

Post score: 0