How to check the size of the topic's TypeCode using RTI Monitor

Note: Applies to RTI Connext 4.5d and above.

This solution shows how to check the size of the topic’s TypeCode using RTI Monitor. It consists of two steps:

1. Enable RTI Monitoring Library in the application.
2. Acess to TypeCode's information from RTI Monitor.

Enable RTI Monitoring Library in the application.

In order to access to DDS application's monitoring information, you must first enable the RTI Monitoring Library in the application.  

If your application is dynamically linked to RTI's libraries, you can quickly add the library in your XML QoS file in the DomainParticipant's properties:

<participant_qos>
    <property>
        <value> 
            <element> 
                <name>rti.monitor.library</name>
                <value>rtimonitoring</value>
            </element>
            <element>
                <name>rti.monitor.create_function</name>
                <value>RTIDefaultMonitor_create</value>
            </element>
        </value>
    </property>
</participant_qos>    

If your application is linked to the static version of RTI's libraries, you can follow the instructions here.

Access to TypeCode's information from RTI Monitor.

After opening the RTI Monitor and selecting the same Domain ID where your application is running, the application's process will appear under the Physical view tab of RTI Monitor:

Within this tab, you can select your application's DataWriter (DW) or DataReader (DR), which are the entities that announce their TypeCode.

After selecting the DW/DR, open a new Description Panel by clicking on the "Create a new Description Panel" button:

Finally, you will be able to check the size of topic's TypeCode (Typecode Serialized Size) under the tab DataType of the Description Panel:

It is important to note that in order to access to DataType tab we must select one of the application's DWs or DRs.

In the previous figure we can observe that RTI Monitor shows the IDL Representation of the TypeCode. If we use default QoS, this information will only be shown for TypeCodes smaller than 2kB. If the size of the application's TypeCode is greater than 2kB we need to change both application and RTI Monitor QoS in order to visualize the IDL representation of the TypeCode. The specific configuration for supporting big TypeCodes and TypeObjects is described in this solution.