fix: check urdf use correctly

README.md

@@ -8,8 +8,15 @@ This package provides another solution by allowing one to dynamically compose ur
 
 ## Installation 
 
-Install with: 
-```pip install urdf-compose```
+Install urdf-compose: ```pip install urdf-compose```
+
+It is also recommended to install check-urdf.
+
+For Ubuntu: `sudo apt-get install liburdfdom-tools`
+For Mac: `brew install urdfdom`
+Other Operating Systems: https://command-not-found.com/check_urdf 
+
+If you can't install `check-urdf`, you must disable it in urdf compoe using `globally_disable_check_urdf`
 
 ## Usage
 

urdf_compose/__init__.py

@@ -14,7 +14,13 @@
     URDFConn,
 )
 from urdf_compose.urdf_compose_error import URDFComposeError
-from urdf_compose.urdf_obj import CheckURDFFailure, ExplicitURDFObj, URDFObj
+from urdf_compose.urdf_obj import (
+    CheckURDFFailure,
+    ExplicitURDFObj,
+    URDFObj,
+    globally_disable_check_urdf,
+    globally_enable_check_urdf,
+)
 
 __version__ = "0.3.0"
 
@@ -34,4 +40,6 @@
     "CheckURDFFailure",
     "write_and_check_urdf",
     "raise_if_compose_error",
+    "globally_disable_check_urdf",
+    "globally_enable_check_urdf",
 ]

urdf_compose/urdf_obj.py

@@ -47,7 +47,31 @@ class CheckURDFFailure(Exception):
     pass
 
 
+_global_check_urdf_enabled = True
+
+
+def globally_disable_check_urdf() -> None:
+    """
+    If you can't install check_urdf, you can globally disable it here
+    If you do, the "check_urdf" will always just return None
+    """
+    global _global_check_urdf_enabled
+    _global_check_urdf_enabled = False
+
+
+def globally_enable_check_urdf() -> None:
+    """
+    check_urdf will default to be enabled, but if you disable it,
+    you can re-enable it here
+    """
+    global _global_check_urdf_enabled
+    _global_check_urdf_enabled = True
+
+
 def check_urdf(urdf_path: Path) -> CheckURDFFailure | None:
+    if not _global_check_urdf_enabled:
+        return None
+
     with subprocess.Popen(
         [f'check_urdf "{urdf_path}" > /dev/null'],
         stdout=subprocess.PIPE,