The Xacro XML macro language extends the Universal Robot Description Format (URDF) and is part of a critical toolchain from geometric representations to simulation, visualization, and system execution. However, members of the robotics community, especially newcomers, struggle to troubleshoot and understand the interplay between systems and the Xacro preprocessing pipeline. To better understand how system developers struggle with Xacros, we manually examine 712 Xacro-related questions from the question and answer site http://answers.ros.org and find Xacro misunderstandings fit into 10 key categories using a systematic, qualitative approach called Open Coding. By examining the 'tags' applied to questions, we further find that Xacro problems manifest in a befuddlingly broad set of contexts. This hinders onboarding and complicates system developers' understanding of representations and tools in the Robot Operating System. We aim to provide an empirical grounding that identifies and prioritizes impediments to users of open robotics systems, so that tool designers, teachers, and robotics practitioners can devise ways of improving robot software tooling and education.

中文翻译：

---

了解 Xacro 的误解

Xacro XML 宏语言扩展了通用机器人描述格式 (URDF)，是从几何表示到模拟、可视化和系统执行的关键工具链的一部分。然而，机器人社区的成员，尤其是新人，很难解决和理解系统和 Xacro 预处理管道之间的相互作用。为了更好地了解系统开发人员如何与 Xacros 斗争，我们从问答网站 http://answers.ros.org 手动检查了 712 个与 Xacro 相关的问题，并使用称为 Open 的系统化定性方法将 Xacro 误解归入 10 个关键类别编码。通过检查应用于问题的“标签”，我们进一步发现 Xacro 问题出现在令人眼花缭乱的广泛上下文中。这阻碍了入职，并使系统开发人员对机器人操作系统中的表示和工具的理解复杂化。我们的目标是提供一个经验基础，识别开放机器人系统用户的障碍并对其进行优先排序，以便工具设计者、教师和机器人从业者能够设计出改进机器人软件工具和教育的方法。