Writing tests in ROS 2

asked 2023-03-09 14:00:42 -0500

jbarry
280 ●8 ●16 ●21

updated 2023-03-10 12:50:01 -0500

kscottz

209 ●2 ●24 ●9

Hi,

I have a large number of tests in ROS 2 in Python I would like to write that are essentially 1. Publish a message 2. Subscribe and do something 3. Check what happens during the "do something"

I can do this by creating the publisher and subscriber in the same piece of code. However, it's closer to what happens "for real" if I publish in one process and subscribe in another. But that doesn't fit in well with pytest. Is there a ROS 2 "way" to do this - something like the equivalent of ROS1's rostest?

Thanks!

answered 2023-03-10 19:49:03 -0500

stevebillings
11 ●1 ●1

I’m thinking that the important thing to test is the “do something” code, and not ROS’s publish and subscribe mechanisms (or the little bit of probably-not-going-to-change-very-often client code that calls them). To test the “do something” code, I’d be inclined to write a set of tests where each test constructs a different message (the data structure), passes it to your “do something” code as input, and verifies whatever the “do something” code produces in response. Would that serve your objectives?

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I do test the "do something" code separately of course. But if I leave the wrappers untested then the only way I find bugs in them is by starting up a whole pipeline. This is especially bad with ROS2's emphasis on asynchronicity where multi-process tests can be very helpful to track down race conditions and deadlocks without having to start a whole simulator or run on hardware.

jbarry ( 2023-03-13 07:22:48 -0500 )edit

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