## page was renamed from roslaunch/2008-09-18 Specification Review
## page was renamed from roslaunch/2008-09-18 roslaunch Specification Review
= roslaunch/2008-09-18 roslaunch Specification Review =
Package Developer: KenConley

Reviewers:
 * StuGlaser
 * BrianGerkey
 * TullyFoote
 * EricBerger
 * MorganQuigley

== Agenda ==

The focus of this review will focus on the features that roslaunch provides as well as the XML format of the roslaunch files. In particular:

 * What remaining features are necessary?
 * What use cases is roslaunch poor at?
 * Is roslaunch sufficient for our PR2 needs?

These are the currently open feature/bug tickets:
 * [[https://prdev.willowgarage.com/trac/ros/ticket/264|Support for xmlparam/yamlparam files]]
 * [[https://prdev.willowgarage.com/trac/ros/ticket/235|Re-implementing SSH support]]


Please add your questions/answers here:



== Package Specification ==
 * [[http://pr.willowgarage.com/wiki/roslaunch|XML format documentation]]
 * [[http://pr.willowgarage.com/pr-docs/ros-packages/roslaunch/html/index.html|Doxygen]]

=== Key features ===

 * Establish the state of the ROS runtime environment, including the master, parameters, nodes, and services
 * Correctly tear down the ROS runtime environment 
 * Restart ROS nodes as necessary
 * Support multi-machine setups

=== Dependencies ===

 * [[rostools]] : library for manipulating ROS environment

=== Testing strategy ===

 * XML-parsing unit tests against XML files
 * Implicit integration testing via rostest

== Minutes ==

 *rosout is preferred over routing console output to screen.
 *Getting console output from remote processes to the local screen is not a priority.  rosout is the solution there.
 *Morgan uses roslaunch on each machine, and it works "awesome".
 *Groups cannot be combined; i.e., a group can be declared only in one place.
 *Startup errors (e.g., executable bit not set) are communicated by the "process died" message to console from roslaunch.  If respawn is set, you may get a fast sequence of startup / die messages.
 *Once support is added for referencing xmlparam and yamlparam files, roslaunch will call out to them (i.e., not reimplement that functionality)
 *After roslaunch dies, parameters stay up; use the master tag to control this behavior.
 *Will eventually add 'roscore' that brings up rosout, master, and param server.  Works in a singleton fashion, not restarting any of these core services.
 *Can we extend the singleton behavior to user-defined ros nodes?  No need, because the master will kill the first instance of two nodes with the same name already.
 *We could add the 'start' attribute to the node tag, allowing the user to specify start or restart.  No, don't do that; instead use multiple roslaunch files (either with multiple invocations of roslaunch, or with one invocation and use of the include tag)
 *How is include pathing done?  It happens rospack-relative.  All includes happen on the local machine.

== Conclusion ==
PASSED!

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## PackageReviewCategory