Hello.
My question is on obtaining the data used by the callback function of a subscriber later in the scripts or as an attribute of a class without having to use global variables. I find it weird that when I create a subscriber there are no methods that allows me to then later obtain the return statement from the callback function or the data used in the callback function. A simple subscriber could be:
sub = rospy.Subscriber("/cmd_vel", Twist, callback)
What I want to be able to do is:
sub.callback — (Should give me the return statement I have specified in the callback)
or
sub.data — (Should give me the data used by the callback function)
But none of these options are available to me. I have seen several posts here on the forum suggesting that people use global variables (which will mess up any larger node structure) or classes, but using classes still only gives access to the data within the class. To illustrate my point I will post a script (there should be no need to run this script):
#!/usr/bin/env python
import rospy
from std_msgs.msg import Int64
from std_srvs.srv import SetBool
from geometry_msgs.msg import Twist
class NumberCounter:
def __init__(self):
self.counter = 0
self.number_subscriber = rospy.Subscriber("/cmd_vel", Twist, self.callback_number)
self.reset_service = rospy.Service("/reset_counter", SetBool, self.callback_reset_counter)
def callback_number(self, msg):
self.counter += msg.linear.x
self.asd = 'IAmUsedInTheOtherCallback'
new_msg = Int64()
new_msg.data = self.counter
def callback_reset_counter(self, req):
print(self.asd)
if req.data:
self.counter = 0
return True, "Counter has been successfully reset"
return False, "Counter has not been reset"
if __name__ == '__main__':
rospy.init_node('number_counter')
NumberCounter()
# Now I want to use the data used in the callback_number function but there is no way for me to call it
#either as an attribute (because I cannot return outside the function) or
#as a method (because I do not have the input 'msg')
#NumberCounter.data <----- How do I get this so I can use it in other statements?
rospy.spin()
Looking at the comment just above rospy.spin() I want to be able to obtain either the raw data used in the callback function or the return value of that callback but there seems to be no way to do it?
The last solution we arrived at was to publish within every callback and then have new subscribers subscribe to that topic, this is the only way we could get around this issue. It does however seem foolish to have to create a whole new publisher and subscriber simply to use the data or return statement of the callback function.
To sum it up:
If I have a class ‘NumberCounter’ and I create a subscriber within that class with a certain callback function. I now wish to use the result of that callback function in a different script or class by importing my NumberCounter class and calling NumberCounter(). But how can I use the NumberCounter.result?
(where NumberCounter.result is the result or data from the callback function)
I should note that I am novice python programmer so something may have gone over my head.