Function rmw_get_publishers_info_by_topic

Function Documentation

rmw_ret_t rmw_get_publishers_info_by_topic(const rmw_node_t *node, rcutils_allocator_t *allocator, const char *topic_name, bool no_mangle, rmw_topic_endpoint_info_array_t *publishers_info)

Retrieve endpoint information for each known publisher of a given topic.

This function returns an array of endpoint information for each publisher of a given topic, as discovered so far by the given node. Endpoint information includes the publisher’s node name and namespace, the associated topic type, the publisher’s gid, and the publisher QoS profile. Names of non-existent topics are allowed, in which case an empty array will be returned.

Depending on the RMW in use, discovery may be asynchronous. Therefore, creating a publisher and then calling this API may not show the newly created publisher immediately.

Attribute

Adherence

Allocates Memory

Yes

Thread-Safe

Yes

Uses Atomics

Maybe [1]

Lock-Free

Maybe [1]

[1] rmw implementation defined, check the implementation documentation
QoS that are correctly read

The QoS profiles returned might have some invalid fields. The rmw implementation must set the invalid fields to RMW_QOS_POLICY_*_UNKNOWN. For DDS based implementations, the only QoS policies that are guaranteed to be shared during discovery are the ones that participate in endpoint matching. From the current QoS settings available, the only ones not shared by DDS based implementations are history and history_depth.

Runtime behavior

To query the ROS graph is a synchronous operation. It is also non-blocking, but it is not guaranteed to be lock-free. Generally speaking, implementations may synchronize access to internal resources using locks but are not allowed to wait for events with no guaranteed time bound (barring the effects of starvation due to OS scheduling).

Thread-safety

Nodes are thread-safe objects, and so are all operations on them except for finalization. Therefore, it is safe to query the ROS graph using the same node concurrently. However, when querying topic names and types:

  • Access to the array of topic endpoint information is not synchronized. It is not safe to read or write publishers_info while rmw_get_publishers_info_by_topic() uses it.

  • Access to C-style string arguments is read-only but it is not synchronized. Concurrent topic_name reads are safe, but concurrent reads and writes are not.

  • The default allocators are thread-safe objects, but any custom allocator may not be. Check your allocator documentation for further reference.

Parameters:

  • node – [in] Node to query the ROS graph.

  • allocator – [in] Allocator to be used when populating the publishers_info array.

  • topic_name – [in] Name of the topic for publisher lookup, often a fully qualified topic name but not necessarily (see rmw_create_publisher()).

  • no_mangle – [in] Whether to mangle the topic name before publisher lookup or not.

  • publishers_info – [out] Array of publisher information, populated on success, left unchanged on failure. If populated, it is up to the caller to finalize this array later on, using rmw_topic_endpoint_info_array_fini(). QoS Profiles in the info array will use RMW_DURATION_INFINITE for infinite durations, avoiding exposing any implementation-specific values.

Pre:

Given node must be a valid node handle, as returned by rmw_create_node().

Pre:

Given publishers_info must be a zero-initialized array of endpoints’ information, as returned by rmw_get_zero_initialized_topic_endpoint_info_array().

Returns:

RMW_RET_OK if the query was successful, or

Returns:

RMW_RET_INVALID_ARGUMENT if node is NULL, or

Returns:

RMW_RET_INVALID_ARGUMENT if allocator is not valid, by rcutils_allocator_is_valid() definition, or

Returns:

RMW_RET_INVALID_ARGUMENT if topic_name is NULL, or

Returns:

RMW_RET_INVALID_ARGUMENT if publishers_info is NULL, or

Returns:

RMW_RET_INVALID_ARGUMENT if publishers_info is not a zero-initialized array, or

Returns:

RMW_RET_INCORRECT_RMW_IMPLEMENTATION if the node implementation identifier does not match this implementation, or

Returns:

RMW_RET_BAD_ALLOC if memory allocation fails, or

Returns:

RMW_RET_ERROR if an unspecified error occurs.