Prepare a conda-forge package for easier installation and use of urdf2casadi-matlab

[singhbal-baljinder]

It would be nice to make urdf2casadi-matlab a conda package and make it available on conda-forge. An initial reference on how to contribute with new packages on conda-forge can be found in https://conda-forge.org/docs/maintainer/adding_pkgs.html.

[traversaro]

I am not sure if conda-forge would accept a MATLAB package. Furthermore, this package would need to depend on casadi-matlab-bindings that is hosted on the robotology channel, so probably it could make sense to have urdf2casadi-matlab package as part of the robotology channel. We can probably just add urdf2casadi-matlab to the ROBOTOLOGY_ENABLE_DYNAMICS_FULL_DEPS robotology-superbuild profile, this should give us for free the urdf2casadi-conda package.

[singhbal-baljinder]

Looking at the developers-faqs the general steps could be the following:

• write a Build****.cmake file, maybe something like:

# Copyright (C) Fondazione Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia
# CopyPolicy: Released under the terms of the LGPLv2.1 or later, see LGPL.TXT
include(YCMEPHelper)
include(FindOrBuildPackage)

find_or_build_package(idyntree-matlab-bindings QUIET)
find_or_build_package(casadi-matlab-bindings QUIET)


set(urdf2casadi-matlab_DEPENDS "")
list(APPEND urdf2casadi-matlab_DEPENDS idyntree-matlab-bindings)
list(APPEND urdf2casadi-matlab_DEPENDS casadi-matlab-bindings)

ycm_ep_helper(urdf2casadi-matlab TYPE GIT
              STYLE GITHUB
              REPOSITORY robotology/urdf2casadi-matlab.git
              TAG master
              FOLDER src
              DEPENDS ${urdf2casadi-matlab_DEPENDS})

• add a find_or_build_package(urdf2casadi-matlab) in https://github.com/robotology/robotology-superbuild/blob/5af37707c0db29cf4ada9209fb3ad3baf6224a59/cmake/RobotologySuperbuildLogic.cmake#L64;
• write a CMakeList.txt in urdf2casadi-matlab, maybe something like the one used in https://github.com/dic-iit/matlab-whole-body-simulator/blob/master/CMakeLists.txt.
• update the doc in https://github.com/robotology/robotology-superbuild/blob/fe67d4b7df6dc72f37f31071e434078c3eddd574/doc/cmake-options.md.

@traversaro Let me know if I am missing something.

[traversaro]

That is all correct, the only diffrence is that in the Build file you need to do:

if(ROBOTOLOGY_GENERATE_CONDA_RECIPES)
  find_or_build_package(idyntree-matlab-bindings QUIET)
else()
  find_or_build_package(iDynTree QUIET)
endif()
find_or_build_package(casadi-matlab-bindings QUIET)

set(urdf2casadi-matlab_DEPENDS "")
if(ROBOTOLOGY_GENERATE_CONDA_RECIPES)
  list(APPEND urdf2casadi-matlab_DEPENDS idyntree-matlab-bindings)
else()
  list(APPEND urdf2casadi-matlab_DEPENDS iDynTree)
endif()
list(APPEND urdf2casadi-matlab_DEPENDS casadi-matlab-bindings)

This is because the idyntree-matlab-bindings is a special package that is only existing when ROBOTOLOGY_GENERATE_CONDA_RECIPES is ON, see https://github.com/robotology/robotology-superbuild/blob/9a436af6b921278d0202bd56694725cb1da4cfb9/cmake/RobotologySuperbuildLogic.cmake#L40 .

[traversaro]

Furthermore, it may be convenient if urdf2casadi-matlab installed its files in a MATLAB namespaces like +urdf2casadi or similar, to avoid polluting the MATLAB path with a lot of functions in the global namespace. However, this would probably imply that we need to review our code to add the namespace.