Make Crocoddyl a Python library

This implies:

• installing the crocoddyl module
• remove the symbolic link
• test the examples with unittest
• put the locomotion submodule back to crocoddyl

changed milestone to %Towards python version 1.0

added bug priority labels

removed bug label

Following the advice of @gsaurel , this is what we should do:

• remove the symlinks and call the python script from the root of the repo.
• move locomotion back in croco folder, to make it a submodule. Locomotion object would be used with

from crocoddyl.locomotion import *

• move the example / unittest related to locomotion in the example / unittest folders, with explicit names.
• start documenting, it is useful for ipython ? operator and sphynx will be used later.

For future work, we will make crocoddyl a mixed c++/python package, to be installed by robotpkg. This is what are the additional steps:

• add a src folder where c++ sources are added. Keep crocoddyl folder for python code.
• add a cmakelist, derived from Pinocchio. @gsaurel is working on this at low priority. We should have it sometime.
• c++ and python sources will be compile in a build/src/.o, build/src/libcrocoddyl.so build/src/.pyc. Unittest will be run from the build/src dir.
• libcrocoddyl.so and *py will be installed.

@nmansard I will add that we need to format all Python files:

• Sorting Python module inclusion (isort)
• Linting analyses (e.g flake8)

This is a easy task that can be done automatically using your prefered IDE. However it can create plenty of conflicts during the merge request if we do it in a wrong moment. I would like to do it in order to ship quality code, this task should be the last one before v1.0.0 release.

If you want to add this now, the best is to make on commit / MR just for it. I can do that if you want. After that, I can set it up to be ran in the CI, to enforce those rules to be followed.

assigned to @nmansard

I think we have to conflicting discussion here. This issue is about making crocoddyl a library, not about indenting the code. @cmastall please refer to #125 (closed) for discussion about indentation, it has nothing to do here. @gsaurel are you proposing to implement the indentation and enforce it? Or is your answer related to the initial topic of making it a library? In the first case, could you please propose it again in #125 (closed)? In the second case, could you be more specific?

@proyan if I move the locomotion files this afternoon, is it endangering your local development branch?

I am proposing to implement standard style rules and enforce them, but this has nothing to do with the current issue.

@nmansard I'm okay with moving the locomotion files.

And ... it is not working as expected. We forget the specific case of the notebooks. They will not work anymore without either a symlink to the crocoddyl folder, or a proper installation in a path covered by PYTHONPATH.

@gsaurel what would you propose to cope with this issue?

@proyan please let me handle the issue entirely (well, with the advises of @gsaurel ).

mentioned in issue #128 (closed)

After discussing with @gsaurel here is how we will process:

1. I will remove the symlinks as initially decided, except in the notebook subfolder. This is still an expected step for the V1.

2. Later, @gsaurel will set up a cmakelist and reorganize the lib, to have a make install that would then allow to generate a robotpkg packet and enable the CI.

mentioned in issue #140 (closed)

mentioned in merge request !147 (merged)

Solved by !147 (merged)

closed

mentioned in commit 77c18f36