Hello ROS developers! In this post, you’ll learn how to create a ROS2 workspace in four easy steps 🙂 . Let’s go!

COMMANDS TO USE

* mkdir -p my_ros2_ws/src

* colcon build

* source ~/my_ros2_ws/install/local_setup.bash

The Four Easy Steps to Creating a ROS2 Workspace

Let’s jump straight in. Here I’m giving the four steps “upfront”; practical demonstrations follow.

Step	Description
1	Install ROS2 I will use ROSDS for this example, which allows me to create a ROSject which already has ROS2 Crystal installed on it . Heck, no time to go through the installation now. Unless you have > 24 hours per day, you can try ROSDS too 🙂
2	Create workspace directory ~$ mkdir -p ros2_ws/src && cd ros2_ws
3	Build workspace with colcon ~/ros2_ws$ colcon build
4	Source workspace setup files ~/ros2_ws$ source install/local_setup.bash && source install/setup.bash

Already got the idea? Great, rush off to your terminal and get the job done! The rest of us will proceed to the practicals.

Practicals: Executing the Four Easy Steps to Creating a ROS2 Workspace

Easier said than done, right? No, for this case, it’s easier done than said. Take a look:

Step 1

Either of the following will do:

1. Use the ROS Development Studio (ROSDS), an online platform for developing for ROS within a PC browser. Easy-peasy. I’m using this option of this post. To open a “terminal” on ROSDS, pick the Shell app from the Tools menu.
2. You have ROS2 installed on a local PC. Okay, skip to step 2.

Next step!

Step 2

Straight to the point:

root@086ad5448257:/# cd ~
root@086ad5448257:~# mkdir -p ros2_ws/src && cd ros2_ws
root@086ad5448257:~/ros2_ws#

Step 3

Now for the real deal…build the workspace:

root@086ad5448257:~/ros2_ws# colcon build

Summary: 0 packages finished [0.13s]
root@086ad5448257:~/ros2_ws# ll
total 24
drwxr-xr-x 6 root root 4096 Feb 20 20:19 ./
drwx------ 6 root root 4096 Feb 20 20:17 ../                      
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Feb 20 20:19 build/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Feb 20 20:19 install/
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Feb 20 20:19 log/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Feb 20 20:17 src/
root@086ad5448257:~/ros2_ws#

Step 4

Source the workspace, and you’re done:

root@086ad5448257:~/ros2_ws# source install/local_setup.bash && so
urce install/setup.bash
root@086ad5448257:~/ros2_ws#

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