Creating an Action

[marcoag]

Check the documentation for the 'Creating an Action' page

Configuration

• Chip set: AMD64
• Build type: Debian
• OS: Ubuntu Noble 24.04
• DDS: FastDDS

Links

• Creating an Action page

Process

Step 1 - I was able to follow the documentation.

Step 2 - The documentation seemed clear to me.

Step 3 - The documentation didn't have any obvious errors.

[slowrunner]

For the config:

• Chip set: AMD64
• Build type: Debian
• OS: Ubuntu Noble 24.04
• DDS: FastDDS

I followed the "Creating an Action" tutorial:

1) Successfully followed the doc 2) Doc was clear:

• One thing confused me was in https://docs.ros.org/en/jazzy/Tutorials/Intermediate/Creating-an-Action.html#building-an-action -
  the phrase "before the ament_package() line, in the custom_action_interfaces:" - before the ament_package() is very clear but I wasn't sure what "in the custom_action_interfaces:" meant. If it had said "in the custom_action_interfaces package.xml file", I would not have expected I need to find "custom_action_interfaces:" in the package.xml file.
• Another thing confused me - why do here I source the install/local_setup.bash instead of the usual install/setup.bash?

3) The doc had no errors

$ source install/local_setup.bash
$ ros2 interface show custom_action_interfaces/action/Fibonacci 

[marcoag]

I believe the idea of using local_setup.bash is to make sure it only includes the packages in the install space. You can find more info on it on the ament documentation on the section of environment creation.

Will close this as completed, thanks a lot for testing!

[clalancette]

• the phrase "before the ament_package() line, in the custom_action_interfaces:" - before the ament_package() is very clear but I wasn't sure what "in the custom_action_interfaces:" meant. If it had said "in the custom_action_interfaces package.xml file", I would not have expected I need to find "custom_action_interfaces:" in the package.xml file.

Yeah, you are right. That sentence was confusing. I've opened up https://github.com/ros2/ros2_documentation/pull/4378 to clarify it.

Another thing confused me - why do here I source the install/local_setup.bash instead of the usual install/setup.bash?

We aren't consistent in our documentation on sourcing setup.bash vs. local_setup.bash. The former sources everything, while the latter only sources the current workspace. Thus the latter can be faster, but you need to know what you've sourced already. In this case we know that we've already sourced the "top-level" setup.bash (otherwise earlier steps would not have worked), so we can just source the local workspace local_setup.bash.