ros-kinetic-catkin-example

This repo is a ros-kinetic workspace with a package called example for the purposes of demonstrating rostest for both Python testing (using rosunit and unittest) and C++ (using gtest).

Additionally, it will demonstrate the integration of ROS with eProsima's Fast-RTPS (DDS).

The concept is as follows:

RTPS topic -> ROS topic -> ROS service

And so sequentially, it looks a bit like this:

• Node A publishes to an RTPS topic
• Node B subscribes to that RTPS topic and publishes to a ROS topic
• Node C subscribes to that ROS topic and hosts the data as a service
• Node D calls the service

What's in it?

The package is very contrived, it's comprised of the following:

• RTPS Messages
  • ExampleMessage
• ROS Messages
  • ExampleMessage
• ROS Services
  • ExampleService
• Nodes
  • Relevant
    • rtps_topic_publisher.cpp (C++)
      • Publishes an RTPS ExampleMessage message to RTPS ExamplePubSubTopic topic with some fixed and random properties
    • rtps_to_ros_gateway.cpp (C++)
      • Receives RTPS ExampleMessage messages from RTPS ExamplePubSubTopic topic and publishes a ROS ExampleMessage message to ROS topic topic
    • topic_subscriber.py (Python)
      • Receives and logs ROS ExampleMessage messages from ROS topic topic
    • service_hoster.py (Python)
      • Receives ROS ExampleMessage messages from ROS topic topic and catalogues them by first_name and last_name, exposing that catalogue via ROS ExampleService service
    • service_caller.py (Python)
      • Calls the ROS ExampleService service with the first_name and last_name provided on the command line
  • Deprecated (context only)
    • topic_publisher.py (Python)
      • Publishes a ROS ExampleMessage message to ROS topic topic with some fixed and random properties
• Tests
  • ros_kinetic_catkin_example_test.cpp (C++)
    • Instantiates rtps_topic_publisher.cpp, rtps_to_ros_gateway.cpp and service_hoster.py and validates their behaviour (using C++ gtest)
  • ros_kinetic_catkin_example_test.py (Python)
    • Instantiates rtps_topic_publisher.cpp, rtps_to_ros_gateway.cpp and service_hoster.py and validates their behaviour (using Python unittest)

How do I use it?

Prerequisites:

• For local building
  • ROS Kinetic
  • A shell with /opt/ros/kinetic/setup.bash sourced
• For building in Docker
  • Docker

To build the package locally:

./local_build.sh

To test the package locally:

./local_test.sh

To build the package in Docker:

./build.sh

To test the package in Docker:

./test.sh

How else do I use it?

NOTE: The following stuff assumes you're operating locally and you've built the package already.

To manually build everything:

catkin_make && catkin_make_install && catkin_make tests

To individually spin up all the pieces (run each command in a separate terminal):

roscore
source devel/setup.bash; rosrun example example_rtps_topic_publisher
source devel/setup.bash; rosrun example example_rtps_to_ros_gateway
source devel/setup.bash; rosrun example topic_subscriber.py
source devel/setup.bash; rosrun example service_hoster.py

# and to call the service
source devel/setup.bash; rosrun example service_caller.py Edward Beech

To run the Python tests:

source devel/setup.bash; rostest example ros_kinetic_catkin_example_test_python.launch 

Underneath, rostest seems to call rosunit which in turn calls unittest.

To run the C++ tests:

source devel/setup.bash; rostest example ros_kinetic_catkin_example_test_cpp.launch

Underneath, rostest seems to call rosunit which in turn calls gtest.

To run all the tests:

source devel/setup.bash; catkin_make run_tests && catkin_test_results --all

The catkin_test_results step is required to truthfully represent the test results, as catkin_make run_tests invokes rostest which swallows up test failures for some reason.

What should I be aware of?

• Running rostest generates both rostest and rosunit jUnit XML test results in ~/.ros/test_results/example
  • Only rosunit results seems to record failures when they happen, rostest records a single pass for all tests runs (regardless of outcome)
  • You can differentiate between results of the two kinds by jUnit XML file prefix (rostest vs rosunit)
• In the rostest jUnit XML, as mentioned above, there is a single <testcase> entry per <test> tag in the .launch file, bearing the name specified in type= for the <test> tag
• In the rosunit jUnit XML, all the test methods appear named as they are in your test code

The above is demonstrated (for rosunit) through the naming of the methods in the test files, e.g.:

// C++ and gtest
TEST(SomeTestSuite, testRTPSTopicPublisherIdeT2859)

# Python and unittest
def test_topic_publisher_ide_t2857(self):

And also demonstrated (for rostest) through the naming of the <test> elements in the .launch files, e.g:

<test pkg="example" test-name="ros_kinetic_catkin_example_cpp_test_ide_t2855" type="example-test"/>

And finally represented in the jUnit XML test results; e.g.:

# for rostest (NOTE: all wrapped up into 1 test)
<testsuite errors="0" failures="0" name="unittest.suite.TestSuite" tests="1" time="2.633"><testcase classname="rostest.runner.RosTest" name="testros_kinetic_catkin_example_cpp_test_ide_t2855" time="2.6330" /

# for rosunit (NOTE: the 2 tests that are actually there)
<testsuites tests="2" failures="0" disabled="0" errors="0" timestamp="2019-05-15T11:22:43" time="0.485" name="AllTests">