Python3 ros msg serialization

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I recently decided to move from python2/melodic up to python3/noetic. However, I am running into issues running my swig wrapped c++ code. Essentially I have to_cpp and from_cpp functions in python, and corresponding ones in c++ (from_python and to_python).

Here are the python ones:

def _to_cpp(self, msg):
    buff = io.BytesIO()
    msg.serialize(buff)
    return buff.getvalue()

def _from_cpp(self, str_msg, msg_type):
    msg = msg_type()
    return msg.deserialize(str_msg)

And the c++:

template <typename M>
M from_python(const std::string str_msg)
{
  size_t serial_size = str_msg.size();
  boost::shared_array<uint8_t> buffer(new uint8_t[serial_size]);
  for (size_t i=0; i<serial_size; ++i)
  {
    buffer[i] = str_msg[i];
  }
  ros::serialization::IStream stream(buffer.get(), serial_size);
  M msg;
  ros::serialization::Serializer<M>::read(stream, msg);
  return msg;
}

template <typename M>
std::string to_python(const M& msg)
{

  size_t serial_size = ros::serialization::serializationLength(msg);
  boost::shared_array<uint8_t> buffer(new uint8_t[serial_size]);
  ros::serialization::OStream stream(buffer.get(), serial_size);
  ros::serialization::serialize(stream, msg);
  std::string str_msg;
  str_msg.reserve(serial_size);
  for (size_t i=0; i<serial_size; ++i)
  {
    str_msg.push_back(buffer[i]);
  }
  return str_msg;
}

An example of the python usage is below:

output = self._from_cpp(self.wrappedCPPFunction(self._to_cpp(custom_ros_msg)))

And an example of the c++ function that is wrapped is below (note, this function is overloaded):

std::string ExampleClass::CPPFunction(const std::string& input_msg) const
{
  custom_msgs::CustomMsg custom_msg = from_python<custom_msgs::CustomMsg>(input_msg);
  trajectory_msgs::JointTrajectory joint_trajectory;      
  ... // other function calls to determine joint trajectory
  return to_python(joint_trajectory) 
}

At runtime, I get an error when passing the custom_ros_msg through the wrappedCPPFunction: xception in your execute callback: Wrong number or type of arguments for overloaded function 'CPPFunction'

I suspect it doesn't like the change from the pythonic2 StringIO to the pythonic3 BytesIO, but I've tried messing with that, to no avail. Any ideas?