Creating a package

Any node you create will exist within a package. Hence, to create a node, you first have to create a package (inside your workspace). You will now learn how to create your own packages, and we will see the differences between Python and C++ packages.

But first, what exactly is a package?

What is a ROS 2 package?

A ROS 2 package is a sub-part of your application.

Let’s consider a robotic arm that we want to use to pick up and place objects. Before we create any node, we can try to split this application into several sub-parts, or packages.

We could have one package to handle a camera, another package for the hardware control (motors), and yet another package to compute motion planning for the robot.

Figure 4.1 – Example of a package organization for a robot

Each package is an independent unit, responsible for one sub-part of your application.

Packages are very useful for organizing your nodes, and also...