C++ SDK

See also

C++ SDK | C++ Tutorial | C++ Examples | C++ Tips and tricks | Debugging C/C++ on the robot

What is the C++ SDK for

  • Develop with your favorite IDE: Visual Studio, QtCreator, Eclipse or XCode.
  • Use the NAOqi framework on your PC. You can run the NAOqi executable on your platform, and use it with a simulator, or you can use the framewrok to write software which communicates with your robot.
  • On Linux and Mac, you can cross-compile libraries to embed in Aldebaran robots.

C++ SDK specificities

Please make sure to have read the Key concepts section first.

Additionaly, there are a few things that are C++ specific, one key difference is that there are two types of proxies:

  • Specialized proxies. They correspond to Aldebaran features, such as ALMotion, ALTextToSpeech, ALVideoDevice etc. These proxies are optimized, efficient and easy to use: once created, they give direct access to already existing methods. Always prefer this kind of proxy to generic proxies if it exists for a desired module - in addition to being optimized, they give you compile-time type checking, which helps you see problems earlier.

    #include <alproxies/altexttospeechproxy.h>

const std::string phraseToSay = "Hello world";
AL::ALTextToSpeechProxy tts("nao.local" , 9559);
tts.say("Hello world");

  • Generic proxies. They give access to any module including the ones which also have specialized proxies. The generic proxy has no information about the methods which are bound to these modules, contrary to specialized proxies. This means that the user must specify himself the name and parameters of the methods: if there is a mistake somewhere, it will raise an exception during execution. This kind of proxy is slower and more error-prone, but very flexible since it can adapt to any module. For user-created modules that have no specialized proxy, this is your only choice.

    #include <alcommon/alproxy.h>
#include <alcommon/albroker.h>

const std::string phraseToSay = "Hello world";
boost::shared_ptr<AL::ALBroker> broker =
  AL::ALBroker::createBroker("MyBroker", "", 0, "nao.local", 9559);
AL::ALProxy proxy(broker, "ALTextToSpeech");
proxy.callVoid("say", phraseToSay);


// Or, if the method returns something, you
// must use a template parameter
bool ping = proxy.call<bool>("ping");

  • ALValue Most of the methods will return simple POD objects, but some of them may return a variant object of type ALValue.

    Please read the libalvalue API reference for more details.

Installation

Please read the C++ SDK Installation section.

Samples and tutorials

The main tutorial can be found in the Extending NAO API - Creating a new module section.

It’s advised you use qiBuild to build your projects.

Please make sure to also read the Local modules section.

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