[bug] C++ node not appearing in rosrun command when built with `catkin build`

general information

OS: Mint 19.3, based on Ubuntu 18.04 Plugin: v0.6.3

what is the bug

When trying to run a C++ node with the >rosrun command, the available nodes in the package don’t appear. This is similar to the issue here. However, I’ve checked that that the executable is marked with an -x.

This can be reproduced by building the workspace with catkin build and trying to launch the built node from VSCode. After some digging, I’ve found that the catkin_tools package installs a symlink to the node executable in the catkin_ws/devel/lib/ directory, while putting the actual executable in the catkin_ws/devel/.private/lib/ directory. This seems like the default behaviour and I can’t seem to find an easy way around this. This additional hidden directory is what seems to be causing the executable search to fail.

suggested fix

Looking at plugin’s executable search function here, I see that the find command will not follow symlinks, which causes it to not find the executable in my case where the package is build with catkin build. I would suggest adding the flag -L to the find command, which will allow the search to follow symlinks. It will not add the actual executable to the output list, but it will add the symlink at least

[yassiezar]

When searching for the executable “pcl_polygon_mesh_to_triangle_list”, I’ve run the command find (catkin_find --without-underlays --libexec --share 'pcl_polygon_mesh_to_triangle_list') -type f -executable, which reports no results. Changing that to find -L (catkin_find --without-underlays --libexec --share 'pcl_polygon_mesh_to_triangle_list') -type f -executable (note the -L) reports exactly 1 result: the symlink to the executable.

I’ve added the -L shown above to my local VSCode plugin and it is able to find and run the executable in VSCode as expected (using >rosun). I’d open a PR, but a 2-character PR seems a bit weird haha

[ooeygui]

Thank you for closing the loop!