Player Driver HowTo

07/14/07



Here are some rough directions for adding a new driver to the CVS source-tree for
Player/Stage. Although these are specific to the "roboteq" driver they should work for other drivers. Some typographical conventions:
  1. "..." in a code block means lines were omitted for clarity

o.k., I have created a patch file for the changes made to the Player source tree in order to add my new Roboteq driver. Only glitch is that the patch does not include the two new files or the new directory -- i.e.; 

position/
	roboteq/
		roboteq.cc
		Makefile.am


here is the process:

1. cvs checkout of Player source (a cvs checkout and build is its own process; check Player FAQs for more info)

2. drop the directory for the new driver ("roboteq" -- position2d) in "player/server/drivers/position/" with its appropriately edited roboteq.cc (removed the extern "C" Extra stuff for building a shared object, otherwise same as the plugin driver).

3. add a new entry in "player/configure.ac": 

...
dnl Create the following Makefiles (from the Makefile.ams)
AC_OUTPUT(Makefile
...
server/drivers/position/roboteq/Makefile
...

4. add a new entry in "player/server/drivers/position/Makefile.am":
...
SUBDIRS = isense microstrain vfh ascension bumpersafe lasersafe nav200 nd roboteq
...

5. add new entries in "player/server/libplayerdrivers/driverregistry.cc": 

...
#ifdef INCLUDE_ROBOTEQ
void roboteq_Register (DriverTable* table);
#endif
...
#ifdef INCLUDE_ROBOTEQ
  roboteq_Register(driverTable);
#endif
...


6. add new entry in "player/acinclude.m4": 

...
PLAYER_ADD_DRIVER([roboteq],[yes],[],[],[])
...


7. create "player/server/drivers/position/roboteq/Makefile.am": 

AM_CPPFLAGS = -Wall -I$(top_srcdir)

noinst_LTLIBRARIES =
if INCLUDE_ROBOTEQ
noinst_LTLIBRARIES += libroboteq.la
endif

libroboteq_la_SOURCES = roboteq.cc


8. run the usual 
	./bootstrap
	./configure
	./make && make install
   if you want to make sure this worked


9. from the top-level source directory (player/) 

	cvs diff -u > registernewdriver.patch

to make a patch file of any existing files that have changed

10. cvs did not allow me to add any files to the repository without having write-privileges: 

	$ cvs add roboteq
	cvs [server aborted]: "add" requires write access to the repository


so I just uploaded a tar.gz of the new directory with the patch file to patch tracker - don't know if there is a better way.