vim-ros-ycm

vim-ros-ycm provides the YouCompleteMe vim plugin the information it needs to work within a catkin workspace.

For example, if your catkin package calls a function from another package, you will be able to jump to the declaration by placing the cursor on the function call and typing :YcmCompleter GoTo.

Auto-completion, error checking, and all the other features of YouCompleteMe work as well.

This plugin uses catkin-tools (i.e. the catkin command). It does not currently support catkin_make or catkin_make_isolated.

It currently enables YouCompleteMe with only C++ packages. Python support is something I would like to add in the future though.

System setup

If you haven't already, install ros.

Install rospkg and catkin-tools. On ubuntu:

sudo apt install python-rospkg python-catkin-tools

Catkin workspace setup

YouCompleteMe uses json compilation databases to know how to build C++ files as you edit. In order to make these available, we need to tell catkin to produce them while building.

NOTE: Be sure you have NOT sourced the setup.sh script for the workspace before running the following commands.

cd ~/catkin_ws
source /opt/ros/melodic/setup.sh
catkin clean -y
catkin config --install -DCMAKE_EXPORT_COMPILE_COMMANDS=ON -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo
catkin build

Of course, replace ~/catkin_ws with the path to your workspace, and replace melodic with your version of ROS.

You only need to run the catkin config command once. After that, every time you run catkin build, the compilation database files will be updated automatically.

How to use

You can install vim-ros-ycm as a vim plugin, so it will work globally whenever working in a catkin workspace, or you can copy the .ycm_extra_conf.py file to the root of your workspace so it will only affect that workspace.

As a vim plugin

Simply add this repository as a vim plugin using your favorite plugin manager. Everything will just work automatically whenever you are editing files within a catkin workspace.

E.g. for Plug, do:

call plug#begin('~/.vim/bundle')
Plug 'kgreenek/vim-ros-ycm'
call plug#end()

Copy ycm_extra_conf.py to your workspace root

Another alternative is to copy the .ycm_extra_conf.py file to the root of your workspace.

cp .ycm_extra_conf.py /path/to/your/catkin_ws

YouCompleteMe searches recursively for files named .ycm_extra_conf.py in the path above the file you're currently editing in order to find the extra conf settings.

The easy way

The catkin_config.sh script runs the catkin config command and copies the .ycm_extra_conf.py file to the root of your workspace. Simply run it from within your workspace.

cd ~/catkin_ws
/path/to/vim-ros-ycm/catkin_config.sh --install

The --install flag and any other flags you provide are all passed to the call to catkin config.

If you prefer, you can also copy the catkin_config.sh and .ycm_extra_conf.py scripts to your package and check it into your repo.

kgreenek / vim-ros-ycm