eProsima Fast DDS Python is a Python binding for the eProsima Fast DDS C++ library. This is a work in progress, but ultimately the goal is having the complete Fast DDS API available in Python. Two packages are available in this repository: the proper Python binding, fastdds_python, and the examples, fastdds_python_examples.

This tutorial shows how to build Fast DDS Python using colcon, a command line tool to build sets of software packages. To do so, colcon and vcstool need to be installed:

pip install -U colcon-common-extensions vcstool

Fast DDS Python depends on Fast DDS and Fast CDR. For simplicity, this tutorial will build these dependencies alongside the binding itself. More advanced users can build or link to this packages separately.

Install Fast DDS dependencies running:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y \
    libasio-dev \
    libtinyxml2-dev

Additionally, Fast DDS Python also depends on SWIG 4.0 and python3-dev. Install these dependencies running:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y \
    swig \
    libpython3-dev

# Create a `Fast-DDS-python` directory in which to download and build Fast DDS Python bindings and its dependencies:
mkdir ~/Fast-DDS-python
cd ~/Fast-DDS-python
# Get workspace setup file (note this address was changed to our fork and to v1.4.3, which is needed for compatibility with the controller messages).
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/foundationbot/Fast-DDS-python/v1.4.3/fastdds_python.repos
# Download repositories
mkdir src
vcs import src < fastdds_python.repos
# Build the workspace
colcon build

When running an instance of an application using Fast DDS Python bindings, the colcon overlay built in the dedicated Fast-DDS-python directory must be sourced. There are two possibilities:

Every time a new shell is opened, prepare the environment locally by typing the command:

source ~/Fast-DDS-python/install/setup.bash

Add the sourcing of the colcon overlay permanently to the PATH, by typing the following:

echo 'source ~/Fast-DDS-python/install/setup.bash' >> ~/.bashrc

Please, refer to colcon documentation for more information, such as building only one of the packages.

The JDK is a development environment for building applications and components using the Java language. There are several versions of Java available. For instance, to install Java 17 JDK, run the following command:

sudo apt install openjdk-17-jdk

Note: Fast DDS-Gen supports Java versions from 11 to 19.

In order to compile Fast DDS-Gen, an executable script is included in the repository which will download Gradle temporarily for the compilation step. Please, follow the steps below to build Fast DDS-Gen:

Note

Since Fast DDS was installed following the Colcon installation, Fast DDS-Gen’s repository can be found under the src directory within the colcon workspace.

cd ~/Fast-DDS/src
cd fastddsgen
./gradlew assemble

Note: In case that a supported Gradle version is already installed in the system, Fast DDS-Gen can also be built running directly:

gradle assemble

TODO

Fast DDS documentation includes a first publisher-subscriber application using Python. Please refer to this section for more information.