Summarizing: 1) Type erased messages are needed for applications such as rosbag, rqt_plot, PlotJuggler, MATLAB importers, etc. Any generic topic subscriber indeed. 2) ShapeShifter had all the informations needed to do this: raw bytes buffer, Message definition and MD5Sum. 3) ROS1 had just one protocol, whilst ROS2 can potentially have DDS or others. THINGS WE MIGHT DO: A) I guess that the first step is to add to ROSIDL the equivalent of __ros::message_traits::Definition< Type >::value()__. Preferably expressed as JSON or XML format. B) It must be possible to subscribe to a topic in a "generic" way, i.e. bypassing the deserialization step and accessign the raw bytes of the message. C) To implement a run-time deserializer, I don't see any solution but implementing a different code for each protocol :frowning: No magic wands. --- [Visit Topic](https://discourse.ros.org/t/ros2-anything-equivalent-to-topic-tools-shapeshifter/3393/7) or reply to this email to respond. If you do not want to receive messages from ros-users please use the unsubscribe link below. If you use the one above, you will stop all of ros-users from receiving updates. ______________________________________________________________________________ ros-users mailing list ros-users@lists.ros.org http://lists.ros.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-users Unsubscribe: