Node communication via messages

In this tutorial, we are going to create two nodes that are going to communicate via messages. One node will be a publisher that generates the information, whereas the other node will be the subscriber consuming the information. Our nodes will be running on different processes within the same machine.

mkdir ~/ign_transport_tutorial
cd ~/ign_transport_tutorial

Publisher

Download the publisher.cc file within the ign_transport_tutorial folder and open it with your favorite editor:

#include <atomic>
#include <chrono>
#include <csignal>
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <thread>
#include <ignition/msgs.hh>
#include <ignition/transport.hh>

/// \brief Flag used to break the publisher loop and terminate the program.
static std::atomic<bool> g_terminatePub(false);

//////////////////////////////////////////////////
/// \brief Function callback executed when a SIGINT or SIGTERM signals are
/// captured. This is used to break the infinite loop that publishes messages
/// and exit the program smoothly.
void signal_handler(int _signal)
{
  if (_signal == SIGINT || _signal == SIGTERM)
    g_terminatePub = true;
}

//////////////////////////////////////////////////
int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
  // Install a signal handler for SIGINT and SIGTERM.
  std::signal(SIGINT,  signal_handler);
  std::signal(SIGTERM, signal_handler);

  // Create a transport node and advertise a topic.
  ignition::transport::Node node;
  std::string topic = "/foo";

  auto pub = node.Advertise<ignition::msgs::StringMsg>(topic);
  if (!pub)
  {
    std::cerr << "Error advertising topic [" << topic << "]" << std::endl;
    return -1;
  }

  // Prepare the message.
  ignition::msgs::StringMsg msg;
  msg.set_data("HELLO");

  // Publish messages at 1Hz.
  while (!g_terminatePub)
  {
    if (!pub.Publish(msg))
      break;

    std::cout << "Publishing hello on topic [" << topic << "]" << std::endl;
    std::this_thread::sleep_for(std::chrono::milliseconds(1000));
  }

  return 0;
}

Walkthrough

#include <ignition/msgs.hh>
#include <ignition/transport.hh>

The line #include <ignition/transport.hh> contains all the Ignition Transport headers for using the transport library.

The next line includes the generated protobuf code that we are going to use for our messages. We are going to publish StringMsg type protobuf messages.

// Create a transport node and advertise a topic.
ignition::transport::Node node;
std::string topic = "/foo";

auto pub = node.Advertise<ignition::msgs::StringMsg>(topic);
if (!pub)
{
  std::cerr << "Error advertising topic [" << topic << "]" << std::endl;
  return -1;
}

First of all we declare a Node that will offer some of the transport functionality. In our case, we are interested on publishing topic updates, so the first step is to announce our topic name and its type. Once a topic name is advertised, we can start publishing periodic messages using the publisher object.

// Prepare the message.
ignition::msgs::StringMsg msg;
msg.set_data("HELLO");

// Publish messages at 1Hz.
while (!g_terminatePub)
{
  if (!pub.Publish(msg))
    break;

  std::cout << "Publishing hello on topic [" << topic << "]" << std::endl;
  std::this_thread::sleep_for(std::chrono::milliseconds(1000));
}

In this section of the code we create a protobuf message and fill it with content. Next, we iterate in a loop that publishes one message every second. The method Publish() sends a message to all the subscribers.

Subscriber

Download the subscriber.cc file within the ign_transport_tutorial folder and open it with your favorite editor:

#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <ignition/msgs.hh>
#include <ignition/transport.hh>

//////////////////////////////////////////////////
/// \brief Function called each time a topic update is received.
void cb(const ignition::msgs::StringMsg &_msg)
{
  std::cout << "Msg: " << _msg.data() << std::endl << std::endl;
}

//////////////////////////////////////////////////
int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
  ignition::transport::Node node;
  std::string topic = "/foo";

  // Subscribe to a topic by registering a callback.
  if (!node.Subscribe(topic, cb))
  {
    std::cerr << "Error subscribing to topic [" << topic << "]" << std::endl;
    return -1;
  }

  // Zzzzzz.
  ignition::transport::waitForShutdown();

  return 0;
}

Walkthrough

//////////////////////////////////////////////////
/// \brief Function called each time a topic update is received.
void cb(const ignition::msgs::StringMsg &_msg)
{
  std::cout << "Msg: " << _msg.data() << std::endl << std::endl;
}

We need to register a function callback that will execute every time we receive a new topic update. The signature of the callback is always similar to the one shown in this example with the only exception of the protobuf message type. You should create a function callback with the appropriate protobuf type depending on the type of the topic advertised. In our case, we know that topic /foo will contain a Protobuf StringMsg type.

ignition::transport::Node node;
std::string topic = "/foo";

// Subscribe to a topic by registering a callback.
if (!node.Subscribe(topic, cb))
{
  std::cerr << "Error subscribing to topic [" << topic << "]" << std::endl;
  return -1;
}

After the node creation, the method Subscribe() allows you to subscribe to a given topic name by specifying your subscription callback function.

// Zzzzzz.
ignition::transport::waitForShutdown();

If you don’t have any other tasks to do besides waiting for incoming messages, you can use the call waitForShutdown() that will block your current thread until you hit CTRL-C. Note that this function captures the SIGINT and SIGTERM signals.

Building the code

Download the CMakeLists.txt file within the ign_transport_tutorial folder.

Once you have all your files, go ahead and create a build/ directory within the ign_transport_tutorial directory.

mkdir build
cd build

Run cmake and build the code.

cmake ..
make publisher subscriber

Running the examples

Open two new terminals and from your build/ directory run the executables.

From terminal 1:

./publisher

From terminal 2:

./subscriber

In your subscriber terminal, you should expect an output similar to this one, showing that your subscriber is receiving the topic updates:

caguero@turtlebot:~/ign_transport_tutorial/build$ ./subscriber
Data: [helloWorld]
Data: [helloWorld]
Data: [helloWorld]
Data: [helloWorld]
Data: [helloWorld]
Data: [helloWorld]

Advertise Options

We can specify some options before we publish the messages. One such option is to specify the number of messages published per topic per second. It is optional to use but it can be handy in situations like where we want to control the rate of messages published per topic.

We can declare the throttling option using the following code :

// Create a transport node and advertise a topic with throttling enabled.
ignition::transport::Node node;
std::string topic = "/foo";

// Setting the throttling option
ignition::transport::AdvertiseMessageOptions opts;
opts.SetMsgsPerSec(1u);

auto pub = node.Advertise<ignition::msgs::StringMsg>(topic, opts);
if (!pub)
{
  std::cerr << "Error advertising topic [" << topic << "]" << std::endl;
  return -1;
}

Walkthrough

ignition::transport::AdvertiseMessageOptions opts;
opts.SetMsgsPerSec(1u);

In this section of code, we declare an AdvertiseMessageOptions object and use it to pass message rate as argument to SetMsgsPerSec() method. In our case, the object name is opts and message rate specified is 1 msg/sec.

auto pub = node.Advertise<ignition::msgs::StringMsg>(topic, opts);

Next, we advertise the topic with message throttling enabled. To do it, we pass opts as argument to Advertise() method.

Subscribe Options

A similar option has also been provided to the Subscriber node which enables it to control the rate of incoming messages from a specific topic. While subscribing to a topic, we can use this option to control the number of messages received per second from that particular topic.

We can declare the throttling option using the following code :

// Create a transport node and subscribe to a topic with throttling enabled.
ignition::transport::Node node;
ignition::transport::SubscribeOptions opts;
opts.SetMsgsPerSec(1u);
node.Subscribe(topic, cb, opts);

Walkthrough

ignition::transport::SubscribeOptions opts;
opts.SetMsgsPerSec(1u);
node.Subscribe(topic, cb, opts);

In this section of code, we declare a SubscribeOptions object and use it to pass message rate as argument to SetMsgsPerSec() method. In our case, the object name is opts and message rate specified is 1 msg/sec. Then, we subscribe to the topic using Subscribe() method with opts passed as arguments to it.

Generic subscribers

As you have seen in the previous examples so far, the callbacks used by the subscribers contain a specific protobuf parameter, such as ignition::msgs::StringMsg. As the name of this section suggests, it is also possible to create a generic subscriber callback that can receive messages of different types. This use case might be interesting if you are building a bridge between Ignition Transport and other protocol or if you want to just print the content of a generic protobuf message using DebugString(), among other use cases.

Download the subscriber_generic.cc file within the ign_transport_tutorial folder and open it with your favorite editor:

#include <google/protobuf/message.h>
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <ignition/transport.hh>

//////////////////////////////////////////////////
/// \brief Function called each time a topic update is received.
/// Note that this callback uses the generic signature, hence it may receive
/// messages with different types.
void cb(const google::protobuf::Message &_msg,
        const ignition::transport::MessageInfo &_info)
{
  std::cout << "Topic: [" << _info.Topic() << "]" << std::endl;
  std::cout << _msg.DebugString() << std::endl;
}

//////////////////////////////////////////////////
int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
  ignition::transport::Node node;
  std::string topic = "/foo";

  // Subscribe to a topic by registering a callback.
  if (!node.Subscribe(topic, cb))
  {
    std::cerr << "Error subscribing to topic [" << topic << "]" << std::endl;
    return -1;
  }

  // Zzzzzz.
  ignition::transport::waitForShutdown();

  return 0;
}

Walkthrough

//////////////////////////////////////////////////
/// \brief Function called each time a topic update is received.
/// Note that this callback uses the generic signature, hence it may receive
/// messages with different types.
void cb(const google::protobuf::Message &_msg,
        const ignition::transport::MessageInfo &_info)
{
  std::cout << "Topic: [" << _info.Topic() << "]" << std::endl;
  std::cout << _msg.DebugString() << std::endl;
}

Here, we use the generic callback function signature. Note the use of google::protobuf::Message as the message type in the subscription callback function cb(). It enables us to receive topic updates with different message types, such as Int32, String from the subscribed topic. Furthermore, we don’t need to worry about the type of the topic advertised while specifying the callback function. The parameter ignition::transport::MessageInfo &_info provides some information about the message received (e.g.: the topic name).

//////////////////////////////////////////////////
int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
  ignition::transport::Node node;
  std::string topic = "/foo";

  // Subscribe to a topic by registering a callback.
  if (!node.Subscribe(topic, cb))
  {
    std::cerr << "Error subscribing to topic [" << topic << "]" << std::endl;
    return -1;
  }

  // Zzzzzz.
  ignition::transport::waitForShutdown();

  return 0;
}

Similar to the previous examples, we use the Subscribe() function to subscribe to a given topic name by specifying the callback function. In our example, the topic name subscribed is /foo.

Follow the next instructions to compile and run the generic subscriber example:

Run cmake and build the example:

cd build
cmake ..
make subscriber_generic

From terminal 1:

./publisher

From terminal 2:

./subscriber_generic