Debugging ROS 2 cpp node with vs code starting the node with a launch file

asked 2021-08-27 11:55:15 -0600

__Jeremy__
53 ●5 ●9 ●11

updated 2021-08-27 11:57:15 -0600

Hello everyone,

I'm using vs code and ROS 2 foxy. If I start the node executable directly, it's easy to connect it to the vs code debugger. Unfortunately I couldn't figure out connecting the debugger to the node executable if I start it using a launch file. Is this possible?

The reason I want to start it with the launch file is that the launch file loads the parameters from a config.yaml file. And if the parameters are not available the node won't work properly. If there is an option to load the parameters without a launch, will also help. Any help is appreciated :-).

Regards, Jeremy

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answered 2021-08-28 03:02:16 -0600

Per Edwardsson

501 ●14 ●58 ●31

Ok, I haven't tried this myself, but I think it should work. Check the second answer here. It explains how you attach a ROS2 node to VS code. Then, in order to use gdb from a launch file, navigation2 has you covered. I _think_ you can combine these two ideas to debug VS code from a launch file. If you get it to work, do get back to me. :)

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Thanks Per for your answer. It worked. I used this in my launch file:

Node(
        package="test_package",
        executable="test_package",
        name="test_package",
        output="screen",
        # prefix=['xterm -e gdb -ex run --args'],
        prefix=['gdbserver localhost:3000'],
        emulate_tty=True,
        parameters=[config]
    )
])

and started the node with: ros2 launch test_package test_package_node. Afterwards I started the debug session with this launch description:

{
  "name": "C++ Debugger",
  "request": "launch",
  "type": "cppdbg",
  "miDebuggerServerAddress": "localhost:3000",
  "cwd": "/",
  "program": "${workspaceFolder}/install/test_package/lib/test_package/test_package_node"
},

__Jeremy__ ( 2021-09-10 11:11:17 -0600 )edit

The only thing which still grinds my gears is that I wasn't able to start everything with a single launch command. So what I did is, I put the ros2 launch command into task and then I set this task as pre-launch task in launch task. Unfortunately this doesn't work since the ros2 launch command doesn't return and thus the launch task gets stuck in the terminal where the ros2 command was executed. Any ideas on this?

__Jeremy__ ( 2021-09-10 11:21:51 -0600 )edit

Okay I found a solution by myself. Maybe I should put more effort in finding a solution before asking questions :-D: https://newbedev.com/how-to-make-vsco...

__Jeremy__ ( 2021-09-10 11:40:45 -0600 )edit

How can we use this method to debug Python based ROS2 packages?

Raza Rizvi ( 2022-02-01 09:41:41 -0600 )edit

Any idea how to do this for a ComposableContainer, which consists of composableNodes? The program: attribute can't tie to an executable since CCs are formed on the fly

jd2548 ( 2022-09-29 13:42:32 -0600 )edit

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answered 2021-08-28 02:56:10 -0600

Fetullah Atas

819 ●7 ●77 ●21 https://github.com/jediofgever

updated 2021-08-28 06:34:14 -0600

Add prefix command to your node declaration in file.

node = Node(
    package='planning',
    executable='planner_server',
    name='planner_server_rclcpp_node',
    namespace='',
    output='screen',
    prefix=['xterm -e gdb -ex run --args'],
    parameters=[params],
)

This will start your node in gdb in a seperate xterm Terminal. So you need have that installed with sudo apt install xterm.

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answered 2021-08-31 04:57:03 -0600

Serafadam

170 ●5 ●13 ●15 https://github.com/Serafadam

You can use this configuration (this can be generated using ROS extension for VSCode). You can then debug all nodes that are present in the launch file. Also remember to build with debug & have workspace as a project root directory in VSCode.

colcon build --cmake-args -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo

```

"launch": {
        "version": "0.2.0",
        "configurations": [
        {
            "name": "ROS: Launch",
            "type": "ros",
            "request": "launch",
            "target": "absolute_path_to_the_launch_file",
            "args": ["argument1:=arg1", "argument2:=arg2"]
        }
        ]
    }

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