Adding non-python files to colcon build

Question

Building my workspace with colcon, some OSM files which are found in a directory "OSM" in a sub_package in the workspace are not found in built space. So when I go to the install space, the files are not there. I am not sure how to do this and if I should put it in the setup.py.

I tried putting this in the setup.py file in arguments of setup():

setup(
    name=package_name,
    version='0.0.0',
    packages=[package_name, submodules, osm],
    data_files=[
        ('share/ament_index/resource_index/packages',
            ['resource/' + package_name]),
        ('share/' + package_name, ['package.xml']),
        (os.path.join('share', package_name), glob('launch/*.launch.py')),
        ('.package_name/sub_package', glob('OSM_folder/*.osm')),
    ],
.
.
.
) # close setup()

but it did not work.

I am using ROS2 Galactic.

Directory structure:

package_name
┃
┣━━━━setup.py
┣━━━━package.xml
┣━━━━resource/
┣━━━━launch/
┗━━━━package_name
     ┗━sub_package_name
       ┗━OSM
         ┣━__init__.py
         ┗━some_osm_files.osm

I have the OSM directory in the built workspace but it has only the init.py file

Answer 1

I solved it. I am not sure if this is the right way of doing this or is there like another better/proper way or not, but here we go.

In the setup.py file, I added the line (os.path.join('lib/python3.8/site-packages/package_name/sub_package/OSM'),glob(package_name+'/sub_package_name/OSM/*.osm')), in the data_files variable.

The first part of the new line which is os.path.join('lib/python3.8/site-packages/package_name/sub_package_name/OSM') determines the new location of the files in the install folder after building the workspace.

The second part which is glob(package_name+'/sub_package_name/OSM/*.osm') determines the files original location in the project workspace.

So the result is that it takes the files from the location mentioned in the second part and puts them in the location mentioned in the first part.

The resulting block is:

setup(
    name=package_name,
    version='0.0.0',
    packages=[package_name, submodules, osm],
    data_files=[
        ('share/ament_index/resource_index/packages',
            ['resource/' + package_name]),
        ('share/' + package_name, ['package.xml']),
        (os.path.join('share', package_name), glob('launch/*.launch.py')),
        (os.path.join('lib/python3.8/site-packages/package_name/sub_package_name/OSM'), glob(package_name+'/sub_package_name/OSM/*.osm')),
    ],

.
.
.
)