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Add support for a new system dependency

Description: This will show you how to add support for a new system dependency.

Tutorial Level:

Suppose, for example, that log4cxx was not already in a rosdep.yaml file in one of your stack dependencies, and you needed it in a package in your stack. In this scenario you would add (or append to) rosdep.yaml something like this:

log4cxx:
  ubuntu:
    9.04: liblog4cxx10-dev
    8.10: |
      if [ ! -f /opt/ros/lib/liblog4cxx.so.10 ] ; then
        mkdir -p ~/ros/ros-deps
        cd ~/ros/ros-deps
        wget --tries=10 http://pr.willowgarage.com/downloads/apache-log4cxx-0.10.0-wg_patched.tar.gz
        tar xzf apache-log4cxx-0.10.0-wg_patched.tar.gz
        cd apache-log4cxx-0.10.0
        ./configure --prefix=/opt/ros
        make
        sudo make install
      fi
    8.04: |
      if [ ! -f /opt/ros/lib/liblog4cxx.so.10 ] ; then
        mkdir -p ~/ros/ros-deps
        cd ~/ros/ros-deps
        wget --tries=10 http://pr.willowgarage.com/downloads/apache-log4cxx-0.10.0-wg_patched.tar.gz
        tar xzf apache-log4cxx-0.10.0-wg_patched.tar.gz
        cd apache-log4cxx-0.10.0
        ./configure --prefix=/opt/ros
        make
        sudo make install
      fi
  debian:
    sid: liblog4cxx10-dev
    lenny: |
      if [ ! -f /opt/ros/lib/liblog4cxx.so.10 ] ; then
        mkdir -p ~/ros/ros-deps
        cd ~/ros/ros-deps
        wget --tries=10 http://pr.willowgarage.com/downloads/apache-log4cxx-0.10.0-wg_patched.tar.gz
        tar xzf apache-log4cxx-0.10.0-wg_patched.tar.gz
        cd apache-log4cxx-0.10.0
        ./configure --prefix=/opt/ros
        make
        sudo make install
      fi
  fedora: log4cxx-devel
  arch: |
    if ! pacman -Q log4cxx; then yaourt -S log4cxx; fi
  macports: log4cxx
  gentoo: ">=dev-libs/log4cxx-0.10"

If a package name includes a special character (>, *), quote the line: gentoo: ">=dev-libs/log4cxx-0.10 app-shells/bash"

Best Practices

It is common to place shared dependencies in lower-level rosdep.yaml files in order to lock-in certain versions across a tree (e.g. boost). This strategy also helps prevent future incompatibilities.