Nested parameters - Is it worth using a parameter server?
ROS allows to declare and use nested parameters. However, it looks to me that the ROS parameter server mainly supports single-value parameters.
I can have something like
node
calibration
x
y
ts
What's the best way for storing/retrieving a nested structure like this?
Server:
- PRO: The request/response can contain a structure.
- CONS: I can't request a single value, but only the whole structure.
Parameter server:
- PRO: I'm storing parameters, so a parameter server seems the obvious choice. I can easily load them from a persistent storage. I can request any combination of values.
- CONS: The response is a list of parameters that the consumer node has to "assemble" into a structure. There are no warranties that all the parameters have been set. The "set" operation should not permit to update single parameters.
I guess I can not help you with your decision. But you can also use the parameter server for nested structures. See: https://docs.ros.org/lunar/api/roscpp... <- with this you can retrieve any parameter as XmlRpcValue (https://docs.ros.org/lunar/api/xmlrpc...). The XmlRpcValue can then contain more XmlRpcValue within it and so on .. (turtles all the way down!)