Async Comm Library

This project provides a C++ library that gives a simple interface for asynchronous serial communications over a serial port or UDP. It uses the Boost.Asio library under the hood, but hides from the user the details of interfacing with the ports or sockets and managing send/receive buffers.

Including in your project

There are three ways to use the async_comm library in your project:

1. If you’ll be using the library in a ROS package, install from the ROS repositories
2. Build and install the library on your system, then use CMake’s find_package() functionality
3. Include the async_comm as a submodule in your project

With the second and third options, you will need to ensure that the Boost library is installed before proceeding:

sudo apt -y install libboost-dev libboost-system-dev

ROS install

The async_comm library is released as a third-party, non-catkin package for ROS following the guidelines in REP 136. To use the library in your ROS package, first install the library from the ROS repositories:

sudo apt install ros-<DISTRO>-async-comm

Replace <DISTRO> with your ROS distribution. The library is currently released for kinetic, lunar, and melodic.

Then, add something like the following lines to your package’s CMakeLists.txt:

# ...

find_package(async_comm REQUIRED)

catkin_package(
  # ...
  DEPENDS async_comm
)

# ...

add_executable(my_node src/my_node.cpp)
target_link_libraries(my_node ${async_comm_LIBRARIES})

Also be sure to list async_comm as a dependency in your package.xml:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<package format="2">
  ...
  <depend>async_comm</depend>
  ...
</package>

System install

First, download and install the library:

git clone https://github.com/dpkoch/async_comm.git
cd async_comm
mkdir build && cd build/
cmake .. && make
sudo make install

Then, do something like this in your project’s CMakeLists.txt:

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.0.2)
project(my_project)

find_package(async_comm REQUIRED)

add_executable(my_project src/my_project.cpp)
target_link_libraries(my_project ${async_comm_LIBRARIES})

Including as a submodule

If you don’t want to go with the ROS or system install options, the next easiest way to embed the async_comm library in your project is as a Git submodule. The following instructions are for a project using Git for version control and CMake for a build system, but should serve as a starting point for other setups.

For example, to put async_comm in the lib/async_comm directory, run the following from the root of your project:

git submodule add https://github.com/dpkoch/async_comm.git lib/async_comm

Your CMakeLists.txt file would then look something like this:

```CMake cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.0.2)

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