CI against python package with custom .repos file fails

[ijnek]

Description

The Build with a custom repos or rosinstall file instructions fails for a python package with a setup.cfg file in the repository root directory.

This issue has been discussed and a draft PR (ros-tooling/setup-ros#408) has been raised (which doesn't work), but I believe that the issue originates from the usage of actions/checkout@v2 as specified in the instructions provided in the README of this repo.

If actions/checkout@v2 is purely to access a .repos file, can't we obtain it from the repository cloned into src/${randomStringPrefix}/${repo["repo"]}/ instead?

Currently, the following code exists in index.js

const resolvedUrl = resolveVcsRepoFileUrl(vcsRepoFileUrl);
yield execShellCommand([`vcs import --force --recursive src/ --input ${resolvedUrl}`], options);

Although the solution below won't work for URLs, for local file paths something like below would work:

const resolvedUrl = resolveVcsRepoFileUrl(vcsRepoFileUrl);
yield execShellCommand([`vcs import --force --recursive src/ --input src/${randomStringPrefix}/${repo["repo"]}/${resolvedUrl}`], options);

and for a repo that contains a file dependencies.repos, we can omit actions/checkout, and just have:

steps:
  - uses: ros-tooling/setup-ros@v0.2
  - uses: ros-tooling/action-ros-ci@v0.2
    with:
      package-name: my_package
      target-ros2-distro: galactic
      vcs-repo-file-url: dependencies.repos

My alternative code doesn't handle many cases so isn't a solution, but is what I'd expect instead of using actions/checkout.

Expected Behavior

CI for a python package containing a custom .repos file to succeed.

Actual Behavior

CI fails.

To Reproduce

1. Go to https://github.com/ijnek/nao_button_sim/
2. Fork project
3. Manually run "Build and Test (foxy)" workflow on the github-ci-problem-reproduce branch.
4. Build will fail and error logs will show.

System (please complete the following information)

• OS: ubuntu-latest
• ROS 2 Distro: foxy, galactic, rolling

[christophebedard]

My alternative code doesn't handle many cases so isn't a solution, but is what I'd expect instead of using actions/checkout.

In what cases does this not work? Other than handling URLs and all.

[ijnek]

In my use case I have the .repos file in my repository, but the instructions in Build with a custom repos or rosinstall file generate a .repos before action-ros-ci using rosinstall_generator.
I haven't really thought about how rosinstall_generator would work without running actions/checkout first.

[ijnek]

Friendly ping @christophebedard, what are your thoughts on this?

[christophebedard]

@ijnek sorry for the delay. I did some investigation yesterday and today, and I think I found a fix: ros-tooling/setup-ros#466. See also ros-tooling/setup-ros#75 (comment)

Also note that you're using vcs-file-repo-url instead of vcs-repo-file-url in your repo here, so it simply gets ignored. The actual issue described above still applies of course.

[ijnek]

@christophebedard Thank you for looking into this. As you pointed out, I had file and repo the other way around. The changes on your branch do seem to fix the issue.

[christophebedard]

This should now be fixed with ros-tooling/setup-ros@v0.2, @0.2.2, or @master.