I am currently trying to use a c++ header-only library declared as a cmake interface library within catkin. This library is supposed to be used by other packages in catkin_ws/src. I was able to compile all packages with catkin_make but not with catkin build.

catkin build fails within the cmake command find_package(... interface_lib) in dependent packages.

Error-Message for the example below would be:

Project 'testnode' tried to find library 'interface_library'. The library
is neither a target nor built/installed properly. Did you compile project
'interface_library'? Did you find_package() it before the subdirectory
containing its code is included?

How do i need to setup CMakeLists.txt and package.xml files to make catkin build work with interface libraries?

Minimal example:

Interface Library

File: catkin_ws/src/interface_library/include/interface_library.hpp

#pragma once



#define RATE 10

File: catkin_ws/src/interface_library/CMakeLists.txt

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.0.0)

project(interface_library)



find_package(catkin REQUIRED)



catkin_package(INCLUDE_DIRS include

  LIBRARIES ${PROJECT_NAME})



add_library(${PROJECT_NAME} INTERFACE)

target_include_directories(${PROJECT_NAME} INTERFACE include)

File: catkin_ws/src/interface_library/package.xml

<package format="2">

  <name>interface_library</name>

  <description>Test interface library</description>

  <version>0.0.1</version>

  <maintainer email="master@disaster.com">Master of Disaster</maintainer>

  <license>MIT</license>

  <buildtool_depend>catkin</buildtool_depend>

</package>

Testnode

File: catkin_ws/src/testnode/src/testnode.cpp

#include <iostream>

#include "interface_library.hpp"



int main(void)

{

  std::cout << RATE << std::endl;

}

File: catkin_ws/src/testnode/CMakeLists.txt

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.0.0)

project(testnode)



find_package(catkin REQUIRED COMPONENTS interface_library)



catkin_package()



include_directories(${catkin_INCLUDE_DIRS})



add_executable(${PROJECT_NAME}_node src/testnode.cpp)

File: catkin_ws/src/testnode/package.xml

<?xml version="1.0"?>

<package format="2">

  <name>testnode</name>

  <version>0.0.0</version>

  <description>The testnode package</description>

  <maintainer email="master@disaster.com">Master of Disaster</maintainer>

  <license>MIT</license>



  <buildtool_depend>catkin</buildtool_depend>

  <build_depend>interface_library</build_depend>

  <build_export_depend>interface_library</build_export_depend>

  <exec_depend>interface_library</exec_depend>

</package>

older catkin or catkin_make uses merged development space but newer catkin or catkin build use linked development space by default.

First thing you should do is to separate catkin workspaces from each other in 2 different folder. Then set up change catkin build's workspace to merged-devel with:

catkin config --merge-devel

and also manually expand it's search areas to both your main ROS folder (default in /opt/ros/<your-version>) and other catkin workspaces which you may use with:

catkin config --expand <path-to-ros-workspace>

after that add your projects and build.