Data Fields | |
DDS_PublishModeQosPolicyKind | kind |
Publishing mode. | |
char * | flow_controller_name |
Name of the associated flow controller. |
The publishing mode of a DDS_DataWriter determines whether data is written synchronously in the context of the user thread when calling FooDataWriter_write or asynchronously in the context of a separate thread internal to the middleware.
Each DDS_Publisher spawns a single asynchronous publishing thread (DDS_AsynchronousPublisherQosPolicy::thread) to serve all its asynchronous DDS_DataWriter instances.
When data is written asynchronously, a DDS_FlowController, identified by flow_controller_name
, can be used to shape the network traffic. Shaping a data flow usually means limiting the maximum data rates at which the middleware will send data for a DDS_DataWriter. The flow controller will buffer any excess data and only send it when the send rate drops below the maximum rate. The flow controller's properties determine when the asynchronous publishing thread is allowed to send data and how much.
Asynchronous publishing may increase latency, but offers the following advantages:
- The FooDataWriter_write call does not make any network calls and is therefore faster and more deterministic. This becomes important when the user thread is executing time-critical code.
- When data is written in bursts or when sending large data types as multiple fragments, a flow controller can throttle the send rate of the asynchronous publishing thread to avoid flooding the network.
- Asynchronously written samples for the same destination will be coalesced into a single network packet which reduces bandwidth consumption.
The maximum number of samples that will be coalesced depends on NDDS_Transport_Property_t::gather_send_buffer_count_max (each sample requires at least 2-4 gather-send buffers). Performance can be improved by increasing NDDS_Transport_Property_t::gather_send_buffer_count_max. Note that the maximum value is operating system dependent.
The middleware must queue samples until they can be sent by the asynchronous publishing thread (as determined by the corresponding DDS_FlowController). The number of samples that will be queued is determined by the DDS_HistoryQosPolicy. When using DDS_KEEP_LAST_HISTORY_QOS, only the most recent DDS_HistoryQosPolicy::depth samples are kept in the queue. Once unsent samples are removed from the queue, they are no longer available to the asynchronous publishing thread and will therefore never be sent.
Publishing mode.
[default] DDS_SYNCHRONOUS_PUBLISH_MODE_QOS
Name of the associated flow controller.
NULL value or zero-length string refers to DDS_DEFAULT_FLOW_CONTROLLER_NAME.
Unless flow_controller_name
points to a built-in flow controller, finalizing the DDS_DataWriterQos will also free the string pointed to by flow_controller_name
. Therefore, use DDS_String_dup before passing the string to flow_controller_name
, or reset flow_controller_name
to NULL before finalizing the QoS.
Please refer to Conventions for more information.
DDS_DEFAULT_FLOW_CONTROLLER_NAME