rclcpp: Parameters

Parameters need to be declared. At the same time, you can get the value if you are not planning to update the value again later:

// node is an instance of rclcpp::Node
// 42 is a great default for a parameter
int param = node.declare_parameter<int>("my_param_name", 42);

To get the value:

int param;
node.get_parameter("my_param_name", param);

Dynamic Parameters

In ROS 2, all parameters can be dynamically updated through a ROS 2 service (there is no need to define duplicate stuff as with dynamic reconfigure).

The example below works in Eloquent or later (earlier ROS 2 releases supported only a single callback and had a slightly different API). See the documentation for rclcpp::ParameterType for valid types.

#include <vector>
#include <rclcpp/rclcpp.hpp>

class MyNode : public rclcpp::Node
{
public:
  MyNode()
  {
    // Declare parameters first

    // Then create callback
    param_cb_ = this->add_on_set_parameters_callback(
      std::bind(&MyNode::updateCallback, this, std::placeholders::_1));
  }

private:
  // This will get called whenever a parameter gets updated
  rcl_interfaces::msg::SetParametersResult updateCallback(
    const std::vector<rclcpp::Parameter> & parameters)
  {
    rcl_interfaces::msg::SetParametersResult result;
    result.successful = true;

    for (const rclcpp::Parameter & param : parameters)
    {
      if (param.get_name() == "my_param_name")
      {
        if (param.get_type() != rclcpp::ParameterType::PARAMETER_STRING)
        {
          result.successful = false;
          result.reason = "my_param_name must be a string";
          break;
        }

        // Optionally do something with parameter
      }
    }

    return result;
  }

  // Need to hold a pointer to the callback
  rclcpp::node_interfaces::OnSetParametersCallbackHandle::SharedPtr param_cb_;
};

Porting XML Arrays to ROS 2

Complex parameter blocks could be parsed as XML in ROS 1. For instance, the robot_calibration package used a block like:

models:
 - name: arm
   type: chain
   frame: wrist_roll_link
 - name: camera
   type: camera3d
   frame: head_camera_rgb_optical_frame

In ROS 2, the common pattern is to make the array a list of just names, then have each name be a block of parameters:

models:
- arm
- camera
arm:
  type: chain3d
  frame: wrist_roll_link
camera:
  type: camera3d
  frame: head_camera_rgb_optical_frame

To parse such a block:

std::vector<ModelParams> models;
auto model_names = node->declare_parameter<std::vector<std::string>>("models", std::vector<std::string>());
for (auto name : model_names)
{
  RCLCPP_INFO(logger, "Adding model: %s", name.c_str());
  ModelParams params;
  params.name = name;
  params.type = node->declare_parameter<std::string>(name + ".type", std::string());
  params.frame = node->declare_parameter<std::string>(name + ".frame", std::string());
  params.param_name = node->declare_parameter<std::string>(name + ".param_name", std::string());
  models.push_back(params);
}