Incorrect Type for ClientGoalHandle.getResult

Description The type definitions for ClientGoalHandle.getResult indicates that it returns Promise<ActionResult<T>>. It actually returns a type

interface ActionResultWithStatus<T> {
    status: number,
    result: ActionResult<T>
};

• Library Version: 0.20.0
• ROS Version: foxy
• Platform / OS: ubuntu 20.04

Steps To Reproduce The following does not compile with tsc although if you cast result to any it does and result satisfies ActionResultWithStatus as described above.

import * as rclnodejs from 'rclnodejs'

async function main() {
  await rclnodejs.init();
  const node = new rclnodejs.Node('my_node');
  node.spin();
  const FollowJointTrajectory = rclnodejs.require('control_msgs/action/FollowJointTrajectory');

  const action_server = new rclnodejs.ActionServer(node, 'control_msgs/action/FollowJointTrajectory', '/my_action',
    (gh) => {
      gh.succeed();
      const result = new FollowJointTrajectory.Result();
      return result;
    }
  );

  const action_client = new rclnodejs.ActionClient(node, 'control_msgs/action/FollowJointTrajectory', '/my_action');
  await action_client.waitForServer();

  const goal = new FollowJointTrajectory.Goal();
  const gh = await action_client.sendGoal(goal);
  const result = await gh.getResult();
  console.log('Result: %j', result);
  console.log('Result Status: ', result.status);
  console.log('Result Result: ', result.result);
  node.stop();
}

main();

Expected Behavior compile without casting result to any

Actual Behavior

[wayneparrott]

After a little debugging I’ve found 2 issues:

1. the ClientGoalHandle.status property is intended to hold the status code (state id) across the goal processing lifecycle. Yet, internally this property is not being updated due to a race condition.
2. this one is subjective and I’ll review with @minggangw. The await ClientGoalHandle.getResult() is leaking the internal {status,result} object. It should only return the result property. If we make this change then the TS types will correctly reflect the api’s behavior. If we choose to return the {status,result} object we will need to add an additional type declaration, e.g., <T>ResultWithStatus and modify the generator logic.

Looking at #1 now. Will discuss #2 with @minggangw

#1 - a race condition arises when the action-server is sends a status msg before returning a goal-request-response message. The latter msg cause the action-client to setup internal state for the goalClient. Yet, the preceding status msg depends up on the goalClient state to be established which it isn’t. Thus the status msg is ignored. A similar race condition arises when the goal request is completed.

[csmith-rtr]

@minggangw yes the example works correctly. The issue is that the typescript types do not match the value the promise resolves with.