Robotics Service Bus

h1. Overview

* Plugins are loaded at initialization time

** This means, registration of provided converters and connectors happens during initialization

** This is required in order for RSB to be able inquire about capabilities and configuration of converters and connectors

* Selection and loading of plugins is configured using the [[Configuration|usual mechanism]]

** An implementation-language-specific section configures

*** Means of locating plugins (e.g. searchpath, classpath, PYTHONPATH)

*** Names of the plugins that should be loaded

h2. C++ Plugins

* Are shared objects

* Configuration via options

** @plugins.cpp.path@: Colon separated list of directories in which expanded (e.g. @rsbspread DIRECTORY/librsbspread.so@ on linux) plugin libraries will be searched

** @plugins.cpp.load@: Colon separated list of plugins that should be loaded. (Names do not include prefixes like "lib" of suffixes like ".so" or ".dll")

Configuration Examples:

<pre>

[plugins.cpp]

path = /vol/vampire/lib:/vol/cor/lib

load = rsbspread:rsbvampire     # no filetype suffix

</pre>

<pre>

RSB_PLUGINS_CPP_PATH=/vol/cor/lib

</pre>

h2. Java Plugins

* Are Jar files?

* Configuration via options

** @plugins.java.path@

** @plugins.java.load@: Colon separated list of plugins that should be loaded.

h2. Python Plugins

* Are eggs?

* Configuration via options

** @plugins.lisp.path@: Colon separated list of directories which get added to @sys.path@?

** @plugins.lisp.load@: Colon separated list of plugins that should be loaded.

h2. Common Lisp Plugins

* Are "ASDF-Systems":http://common-lisp.net/project/asdf/

* Configuration via options

** @plugins.lisp.path@

** @plugins.lisp.load@: Colon separated list of plugins that should be loaded.

h2. Interaction with Introspection of Configuration Options

The following protocol should be sufficient

# Setup fundamental configuration options (debugging, plugin loading, etc.)

# Process configuration sources

# Load requested plugins

#* Plugins register connector implementations, converters, etc.

# Introspect connector implementations to discover additional configuration options

# Update configuration options

# Process configuration sources again