Add Support for SDF

[Amronos]

Fixes #632
I have modified hardware_interface/src/component_parser.cpp to add support for SDF models.

To test this out the demos being added through ros-controls/gz_ros2_control#427 can be used.

[saikishor]

Can you please add a test with an example SDF here: https://github.com/ros-controls/ros2_control/blob/master/hardware_interface/test/test_component_parser.cpp?

[codecov]

Codecov Report

Attention: Patch coverage is 80.00000% with 2 lines in your changes missing coverage. Please review.

Project coverage is 87.61%. Comparing base (d55def1) to head (059c1c4).

Files with missing lines	Patch %	Lines
hardware_interface/src/component_parser.cpp	66.66%	1 Missing and 1 partial ⚠️

Additional details and impacted files

@@            Coverage Diff             @@
##           master    #1763      +/-   ##
==========================================
- Coverage   87.62%   87.61%   -0.02%     
==========================================
  Files         120      120              
  Lines       12217    12230      +13     
  Branches     1093     1093              
==========================================
+ Hits        10705    10715      +10     
- Misses       1123     1125       +2     
- Partials      389      390       +1     

Flag	Coverage Δ
unittests	87.61% <80.00%> (-0.02%)	⬇️

Flags with carried forward coverage won't be shown. Click here to find out more.

Files with missing lines	Coverage Δ
hardware_interface/test/test_component_parser.cpp	98.83% <100.00%> (+0.01%)	⬆️
hardware_interface/src/component_parser.cpp	94.47% <66.66%> (+0.04%)	⬆️

... and 6 files with indirect coverage changes

[saikishor]

@Amronos The changes look good to me. Can you add that SDF parsing is also supported through robot_description topic in the release_notes.rst?.

Sorry for not pointing out earlier

[saikishor]

LGTM

[azeey]

This is great! Thanks @Amronos

[Amronos]

Are there any updates on when this PR can be reviewed and merged?

[christophfroehlich]

Are there any updates on when this PR can be reviewed and merged?

Maintainers were busy with big PRs being merged the last days. We have so many other (older) PRs waiting for reviews, you can speed up the process by also reviewing them.

[Amronos]

The test successfully_parse_valid_sdf is passing for me when running colcon test, but failing in the GitHub checks. Any idea why this is the case?

[bmagyar]

Do you have a non-standard URDF library installed? The CI errors come from this segment

  // parse full URDF for mimic options
  urdf::Model model;
  if (!model.initString(urdf))
  {
    throw std::runtime_error("Failed to parse URDF file");
}

located here https://github.com/ros-controls/ros2_control/pull/1763/files#diff-ae927ba56161377a082def3ca0417c1052c37949d94e27a7713e3f9f798e790eR853
and the other print comes directly from within the initString() call from here

Seems legit to me but I'm wondering how it worked for you :D

[Amronos]

Do you have a non-standard URDF library installed?

I don't have a non-standard URDF library installed and the test is passing for me.
I did try rebuilding with colcon and testing multiple times. I also tried re-cloning the repo.
I also tested with a regular ROS launch file, in which I passed the SDF file to robot_state_publisher.
Is it possible that something in the CI is outdated?

[christophfroehlich]

Is it possible that something in the CI is outdated?

I don't think so, it fails on debian, RHEL and ubuntu

[Amronos]

ros-controls/gz_ros2_control#427 should help in testing this PR.

[azeey]

I've locally verified that the test fails because the ros-<distro>-sdformat-urdf package is not installed. One option is to add sdformat_urdf to the package.xml. @christophfroehlich / @bmagyar is that something you'd be okay with?

[Amronos]

Oh, that explains it. Thanks a lot @azeey!

[azeey]

IIUC, the Source and Semi-Binary builds do not install dependencies based on the package.xml in the PR, but use a docker image built from the master branch. Should the sdformat_urdf repo be added to https://github.com/ros-controls/ros2_control/blob/master/ros2_control.jazzy.repos and https://github.com/ros-controls/ros2_control/blob/master/ros2_control.rolling.repos?

[christophfroehlich]

No. Debian Source build uses a handcrafted docker, I can add the package there. RHEL tries to install the deps, but

ERROR: the following rosdeps failed to install
dnf: Failed to detect successful installation of [ros-jazzy-sdformat-urdf]

The package is deactivated on the buildfarm, please ping the maintainers to activate it.