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Package Summary
rostopic contains the rostopic command-line tool for displaying debug information about ROS Topics, including publishers, subscribers, publishing rate, and ROS Messages. It also contains an experimental Python library for getting information about and interacting with topics dynamically. This library is for internal-use only as the code API may change, though it does provide examples of how to implement dynamic subscription and publication behaviors in ROS.
- Author: Ken Conley/kwc@willowgarage.com
- License: BSD
- Repository: ros
- Source: svn https://code.ros.org/svn/ros/stacks/ros_comm/tags/ros_comm-1.4.8
Package Summary
rostopic contains the rostopic command-line tool for displaying debug information about ROS Topics, including publishers, subscribers, publishing rate, and ROS Messages. It also contains an experimental Python library for getting information about and interacting with topics dynamically. This library is for internal-use only as the code API may change, though it does provide examples of how to implement dynamic subscription and publication behaviors in ROS.
- Author: Ken Conley/kwc@willowgarage.com
- License: BSD
- Source: git https://github.com/ros/ros_comm.git (branch: ros_comm-1.6)
Package Summary
- Author: unknown
- License: unknown
- Source: git https://github.com/ros/ros_comm.git (branch: fuerte-devel)
Package Summary
rostopic contains the rostopic command-line tool for displaying debug information about ROS Topics, including publishers, subscribers, publishing rate, and ROS Messages. It also contains an experimental Python library for getting information about and interacting with topics dynamically. This library is for internal-use only as the code API may change, though it does provide examples of how to implement dynamic subscription and publication behaviors in ROS.
- Maintainer status: maintained
- Maintainer: Dirk Thomas <dthomas AT osrfoundation DOT org>
- Author: Ken Conley
- License: BSD
- Source: git https://github.com/ros/ros_comm.git (branch: groovy-devel)
Package Summary
rostopic contains the rostopic command-line tool for displaying debug information about ROS Topics, including publishers, subscribers, publishing rate, and ROS Messages. It also contains an experimental Python library for getting information about and interacting with topics dynamically. This library is for internal-use only as the code API may change, though it does provide examples of how to implement dynamic subscription and publication behaviors in ROS.
- Maintainer status: maintained
- Maintainer: Dirk Thomas <dthomas AT osrfoundation DOT org>
- Author: Ken Conley
- License: BSD
- Source: git https://github.com/ros/ros_comm.git (branch: hydro-devel)
Package Summary
rostopic contains the rostopic command-line tool for displaying debug information about ROS Topics, including publishers, subscribers, publishing rate, and ROS Messages. It also contains an experimental Python library for getting information about and interacting with topics dynamically. This library is for internal-use only as the code API may change, though it does provide examples of how to implement dynamic subscription and publication behaviors in ROS.
- Maintainer status: maintained
- Maintainer: Dirk Thomas <dthomas AT osrfoundation DOT org>
- Author: Ken Conley
- License: BSD
- Source: git https://github.com/ros/ros_comm.git (branch: indigo-devel)
Package Summary
rostopic contains the rostopic command-line tool for displaying debug information about ROS Topics, including publishers, subscribers, publishing rate, and ROS Messages. It also contains an experimental Python library for getting information about and interacting with topics dynamically. This library is for internal-use only as the code API may change, though it does provide examples of how to implement dynamic subscription and publication behaviors in ROS.
- Maintainer status: maintained
- Maintainer: Dirk Thomas <dthomas AT osrfoundation DOT org>
- Author: Ken Conley
- License: BSD
- Source: git https://github.com/ros/ros_comm.git (branch: indigo-devel)
Package Summary
rostopic contains the rostopic command-line tool for displaying debug information about ROS Topics, including publishers, subscribers, publishing rate, and ROS Messages. It also contains an experimental Python library for getting information about and interacting with topics dynamically. This library is for internal-use only as the code API may change, though it does provide examples of how to implement dynamic subscription and publication behaviors in ROS.
- Maintainer status: maintained
- Maintainer: Jacob Perron <jacob AT openrobotics DOT org>, Michael Carroll <michael AT openrobotics DOT org>, Shane Loretz <sloretz AT openrobotics DOT org>
- Author: Ken Conley, Dirk Thomas <dthomas AT osrfoundation DOT org>
- License: BSD
- Source: git https://github.com/ros/ros_comm.git (branch: kinetic-devel)
Package Summary
rostopic contains the rostopic command-line tool for displaying debug information about ROS Topics, including publishers, subscribers, publishing rate, and ROS Messages. It also contains an experimental Python library for getting information about and interacting with topics dynamically. This library is for internal-use only as the code API may change, though it does provide examples of how to implement dynamic subscription and publication behaviors in ROS.
- Maintainer status: maintained
- Maintainer: Dirk Thomas <dthomas AT osrfoundation DOT org>
- Author: Ken Conley
- License: BSD
- Source: git https://github.com/ros/ros_comm.git (branch: lunar-devel)
Package Summary
rostopic contains the rostopic command-line tool for displaying debug information about ROS Topics, including publishers, subscribers, publishing rate, and ROS Messages. It also contains an experimental Python library for getting information about and interacting with topics dynamically. This library is for internal-use only as the code API may change, though it does provide examples of how to implement dynamic subscription and publication behaviors in ROS.
- Maintainer status: maintained
- Maintainer: Jacob Perron <jacob AT openrobotics DOT org>, Michael Carroll <michael AT openrobotics DOT org>, Shane Loretz <sloretz AT openrobotics DOT org>
- Author: Ken Conley, Dirk Thomas <dthomas AT osrfoundation DOT org>
- License: BSD
- Source: git https://github.com/ros/ros_comm.git (branch: melodic-devel)
Package Summary
rostopic contains the rostopic command-line tool for displaying debug information about ROS Topics, including publishers, subscribers, publishing rate, and ROS Messages. It also contains an experimental Python library for getting information about and interacting with topics dynamically. This library is for internal-use only as the code API may change, though it does provide examples of how to implement dynamic subscription and publication behaviors in ROS.
- Maintainer status: maintained
- Maintainer: Jacob Perron <jacob AT openrobotics DOT org>, Michael Carroll <michael AT openrobotics DOT org>, Shane Loretz <sloretz AT openrobotics DOT org>
- Author: Ken Conley, Dirk Thomas <dthomas AT osrfoundation DOT org>
- License: BSD
- Source: git https://github.com/ros/ros_comm.git (branch: noetic-devel)
Contents
rostopic command-line tool
The rostopic command-line tool displays information about ROS topics. Currently, it can display a list of active topics, the publishers and subscribers of a specific topic, the publishing rate of a topic, the bandwidth of a topic, and messages published to a topic. The display of messages is configurable to output in a plotting-friendly format.
rostopic, like several other ROS tools, uses YAML-syntax at the command line for representing the contents of a message. For information on how to use this YAML syntax for commands like rostopic pub, please see the YAML command line guide.
This is the current list of supported commands:
rostopic bw display bandwidth used by topic rostopic delay display delay for topic which has header rostopic echo print messages to screen rostopic find find topics by type rostopic hz display publishing rate of topic rostopic info print information about active topic rostopic list print information about active topics rostopic pub publish data to topic rostopic type print topic type
These are described in greater detail in the following sections.
rostopic bw
bw <topic-name>
- Display the bandwidth used by a topic.
$ rostopic bw /topic_name
NOTE: the bandwidth reported is the received bandwidth. If there are network connectivity issues, or if rostopic cannot keep up with the publisher, the reported number may be lower than the actual bandwidth. rostopic is implemented in Python, which cannot maintain as high throughput as roscpp-based nodes.
- Display the bandwidth used by a topic.
rostopic delay
delay <topic-name>
- Display the delay for topic which has header.
$ rostopic delay /topic_name
- Display the delay for topic which has header.
See also a related question thread.
rostopic echo
echo <topic-name>
- Display messages published to a topic.
$ rostopic echo /topic_name
--offset
- Display time in messages as offset from current time (e.g. to calculate lag/latency).
$ rostopic echo --offset /topic_name
--filter
- Display messages that match a specified Python expression.
$ rostopic echo --filter "m.data=='foo'" /topic_name
The Python expression can use any Python builtins plus the variable m (the message). For example, to filter based on the frame_id of the first transform in a tf/tfMessage:
$ rostopic echo --filter "m.transforms[0].child_frame_id == 'my_frame'" /tf
-c
Clear the screen after each message is published. Cannot be used with -p.
$ rostopic echo -c /topic_name
-b
Display messages in a bag file:
$ rostopic echo -b log_file.bag /topic_name
-p
Display messages in a matlab/octave-friendly plotting format. Cannot be used with -c.
$ rostopic echo -p /topic_name
-w NUM_WIDTH New in Indigo
- Print all numeric values with a fixed width.
--nostr, --noarr
- Exclude string and array fields from the plotting output.
$ rostopic echo -p --nostr --noarr /topic_name
-n COUNT New in C Turtle
- Echo COUNT messages and exit.
echo <topic-name/field>
- Display specific fields in a message.
$ rostopic echo /my_topic/field_name
- Display messages published to a topic.
rostopic find
find <msg-type>
- Find topics by type.
$ rostopic find std_msg/String
- Find topics by type.
rostopic hz
hz <topic-name>
- Display the publishing rate of a topic. The rate reported is by default the average rate over the entire time rostopic has been running.
$ rostopic hz /topic_name
NOTE: To get a temporally local estimate of the rate, use the -w option to specify the window size for the average.
-w WINDOW_SIZE
- Report rate using a window size (number of samples) for a temporally local estimate of the rate.
--filter FILTER_EXPR New in C Turtle
- Only report rate for messages that match the Python FILTER_EXPR. WARNING: this option has a large performance hit and shouldn't be used for high-rate topics.
- Display the publishing rate of a topic. The rate reported is by default the average rate over the entire time rostopic has been running.
rostopic info (ROS 0.10)
info <topic-name>
- Print information about topic.
$ rostopic info clock
- Print information about topic.
rostopic list
list
- Display a list of current topics.
$ rostopic list
list <namespace>
(ROS 0.11) List topics in the specified namespace. In previous versions, this is equivalent to the rostopic info command.
$ rostopic list /namespace
-b
List topics in a bag file.
-p
- List only publishers.
-s
- List only subscribers.
-v
- Verbose mode.
$ rostopic list -v
--host New in Diamondback
- Group list by hostname.
- Display a list of current topics.
rostopic pub
pub <topic-name> <topic-type> [data...]
- Publish data to a topic.
$ rostopic pub /topic_name std_msgs/String hello
- Publish data to a topic.
There are three ways to specify the message fields:
Command-line arguments. Defaults to latch mode. Example usage:
$ rostopic pub my_topic std_msgs/String "hello there"
Piped input. Defaults to rate mode (10hz). Example usage:
$ rostopic echo chatter | rostopic pub bar std_msgs/String
YAML data file. Defaults to rate mode (10hz). Example usage:
$ rostopic echo chatter > chatter.bagy Collect messages, then Ctrl-C $ rostopic pub -f chatter.bagy bar std_msgs/String
There are three modes that rostopic can publish in:
Latching mode
rostopic will publish a message to /topic_name and keep it latched -- any new subscribers that come online after you start rostopic will hear this message. You can stop this at any time by pressing ctrl-C.
Once mode
If you don't want to have to stop rostopic with ctrl-C, you can publish in once mode. rostopic will keep the message latched for 3 seconds, then quit.
Rate mode.
In rate mode, rostopic will publish your message at a specific rate. For example, -r 10 will publish at 10hz. For file and piped input, this defaults to 10hz.
Options:
-l, --latch New in Diamondback
Enable latch mode. Latching mode is the default when using command-line arguments.
-r RATE
Enable rate mode. Rate mode is the default (10hz) when using piped or file input.
-1, --once
Enable once mode.
-f FILE New in Diamondback
Read message fields from YAML file. YAML syntax is equivalent to output of rostopic echo. Messages are separated using YAML document separator ---. To use only the first message in a file, use the --latch option.
Data types are be interpreted using YAML-syntax, e.g. 1 is an integer, 1.0 is a float, and foo is a string.
For example:
$ rostopic pub -r 10 /cmd_vel geometry_msgs/Twist '{linear: {x: 0.1, y: 0.0, z: 0.0}, angular: {x: 0.0,y: 0.0,z: 0.0}}'
or on Windows, replace single quotes with double quotes New in Melodic
$ rostopic pub -r 10 /cmd_vel geometry_msgs/Twist "{linear: {x: 0.1, y: 0.0, z: 0.0}, angular: {x: 0.0,y: 0.0, z: 0.0}}"
Publish a geometry_msgs/Twist message with a rate of 10Hz. For more a description of the YAML format and some tips for using it on the command-line with ROS, please see YAML command line.
rostopic type
type <topic-name>
- Display topic type of a topic.
$ rostopic type /topic_name
This is useful for piping to other commands, like rosmsg, e.g.
$ rostopic type /topic_name | rosmsg show
- Display topic type of a topic.
Roadmap
rostopic is a stable command-line tool within the ROS core toolchain. The underlying code may undergo refactoring for easier library use, but the external API is expected to be fairly stable.
One area in which rostopic is expected to see development is with the output format of rostopic echo and input format of rostopic pub. The planned feature is to make both compatible with YAML syntax, which will enable
- YAML-based message data logging
- YAML-based message data publishing
This feature is currently not scheduled.