Depend on libconsole-bridge-dev instead of rosconsole?

[mikepurvis]

We desire to introduce pluginlib as a dependency for packages inside ros_comm without creating a repo-level circular dependency, which would presently be the case on account of rosconsole being inside ros_comm (see ros/ros_comm#1206).

An obvious solution is to extract rosconsole into its own repo, but I wonder about breaking the dependency on this end, too. Excluding tests, all usages of logging in this repo are as follows:

$ grep -r \ ROS_ *
include/pluginlib/class_loader_imp.h:  ROS_DEBUG_NAMED("pluginlib.ClassLoader", "Creating ClassLoader, base = %s, address = %p",
include/pluginlib/class_loader_imp.h:  ROS_DEBUG_NAMED("pluginlib.ClassLoader",
include/pluginlib/class_loader_imp.h:  ROS_DEBUG_NAMED("pluginlib.ClassLoader", "Destroying ClassLoader, base = %s, address = %p",
include/pluginlib/class_loader_imp.h:  ROS_DEBUG_NAMED("pluginlib.ClassLoader",
include/pluginlib/class_loader_imp.h:    ROS_DEBUG_NAMED("pluginlib.ClassLoader",
include/pluginlib/class_loader_imp.h:    ROS_DEBUG_NAMED("pluginlib.ClassLoader",
include/pluginlib/class_loader_imp.h:    ROS_DEBUG_NAMED("pluginlib.ClassLoader", "Instance created with object pointer = %p", obj);
include/pluginlib/class_loader_imp.h:    ROS_DEBUG_NAMED("pluginlib.ClassLoader", "CreateClassException about to be raised for class %s",
include/pluginlib/class_loader_imp.h:  ROS_DEBUG_NAMED("pluginlib.ClassLoader", "Attempting to create managed instance for class %s.",
include/pluginlib/class_loader_imp.h:    ROS_DEBUG_NAMED("pluginlib.ClassLoader", "%s maps to real class type %s",
include/pluginlib/class_loader_imp.h:    ROS_DEBUG_NAMED("pluginlib.ClassLoader", "boost::shared_ptr to object of real type %s created.",
include/pluginlib/class_loader_imp.h:    ROS_DEBUG_NAMED("pluginlib.ClassLoader",
include/pluginlib/class_loader_imp.h:  ROS_DEBUG_NAMED("pluginlib.ClassLoader",
include/pluginlib/class_loader_imp.h:    ROS_DEBUG_NAMED("pluginlib.ClassLoader", "%s maps to real class type %s",
include/pluginlib/class_loader_imp.h:    ROS_DEBUG_NAMED("pluginlib.ClassLoader", "std::unique_ptr to object of real type %s created.",
include/pluginlib/class_loader_imp.h:    ROS_DEBUG_NAMED("pluginlib.ClassLoader",
include/pluginlib/class_loader_imp.h:  ROS_DEBUG_NAMED("pluginlib.ClassLoader", "Attempting to create UNMANAGED instance for class %s.",
include/pluginlib/class_loader_imp.h:    ROS_DEBUG_NAMED("pluginlib.ClassLoader",
include/pluginlib/class_loader_imp.h:    ROS_DEBUG_NAMED("pluginlib.ClassLoader", "%s maps to real class type %s",
include/pluginlib/class_loader_imp.h:    ROS_DEBUG_NAMED("pluginlib.ClassLoader", "Instance of type %s created.", class_type.c_str());
include/pluginlib/class_loader_imp.h:    ROS_DEBUG_NAMED("pluginlib.ClassLoader",
include/pluginlib/class_loader_imp.h:  ROS_DEBUG_NAMED("pluginlib.ClassLoader", "Entering determineAvailableClasses()...");
include/pluginlib/class_loader_imp.h:  ROS_DEBUG_NAMED("pluginlib.ClassLoader", "Exiting determineAvailableClasses()...");
include/pluginlib/class_loader_imp.h:    ROS_ERROR_NAMED("pluginlib.ClassLoader",
include/pluginlib/class_loader_imp.h:    ROS_ERROR_NAMED("pluginlib.ClassLoader",
include/pluginlib/class_loader_imp.h:    ROS_DEBUG_NAMED("pluginlib.ClassLoader", "Class %s has no mapping in classes_available_.",
include/pluginlib/class_loader_imp.h:  ROS_DEBUG_NAMED("pluginlib.ClassLoader", "Class %s maps to library %s in classes_available_.",
include/pluginlib/class_loader_imp.h:  ROS_DEBUG_NAMED("pluginlib.ClassLoader",
include/pluginlib/class_loader_imp.h:    ROS_DEBUG_NAMED("pluginlib.ClassLoader", "Checking path %s ", it->c_str());
include/pluginlib/class_loader_imp.h:      ROS_DEBUG_NAMED("pluginlib.ClassLoader", "Library %s found at explicit path %s.",
include/pluginlib/class_loader_imp.h:    ROS_DEBUG_NAMED("pluginlib.ClassLoader", "Class %s has no mapping in classes_available_.",
include/pluginlib/class_loader_imp.h:    ROS_DEBUG_NAMED("pluginlib.ClassLoader", "No path could be found to the library containing %s.",
include/pluginlib/class_loader_imp.h:  ROS_DEBUG_NAMED("pluginlib.ClassLoader", "Processing xml file %s...", xml_file.c_str());
include/pluginlib/class_loader_imp.h:      ROS_ERROR_NAMED("pluginlib.ClassLoader",
include/pluginlib/class_loader_imp.h:      ROS_ERROR_NAMED("pluginlib.ClassLoader",
include/pluginlib/class_loader_imp.h:        ROS_DEBUG_NAMED("pluginlib.ClassLoader",
include/pluginlib/class_loader_imp.h:        ROS_DEBUG_NAMED("pluginlib.ClassLoader",
include/pluginlib/class_loader_imp.h:  ROS_DEBUG_NAMED("pluginlib.ClassLoader", "Refreshing declared classes.");
include/pluginlib/class_loader_imp.h:    ROS_DEBUG_NAMED("pluginlib.ClassLoader", "Attempting to unload library %s for class %s",

The main issue with switching this is that console_bridge doesn't have the concept of named loggers the way rosconsole does, so that would be lost, however it seems like there may be some logic within rosconsole_bridge that attempts to recover a prefix embedded in the log string itself:

https://github.com/ros/rosconsole_bridge/blob/8e27f6ef86c84b78d9fd20d883923fca70ba3532/src/bridge.cpp#L56-L75

Would a PR that switches this over be acceptable to the maintainers?

[dirk-thomas]

Not sure if that effects the decision / implementation. One question will be where REGISTER_ROSCONSOLE_BRIDGE will be called than to ensure that the messages are being delivered to e.g. /rosout.

[mikepurvis]

Interesting— yeah, not having an actual TU to put that in does muddy the waters a bit. However, given the context here, perhaps it would be reasonable to just do it once as a heap-allocated thing when the first ClassLoader is initialized. Anyway, would have to play with it a bit.

[mikaelarguedas]

My preference here is to wait for ros_comm to be split in multiple repositories. Then pluginlib can be used in various tools without removing the ability for pluginlib users to use rosconsole features.