How can I call a member method which is inside a ROS2 node class?

Question

I have a node class shown below and I want to call its setCloud method from another class but it gives me the error:

error: ‘using element_type = class rclcpp::Node’ {aka ‘class rclcpp::Node’} has no member named ‘setCloud’ 422 | node_->setCloud(data);

My Node class:

class ROSNode : public rclcpp::Node
{
public:
    ROSNode() : Node("ros_node")
    {
        msg.header.frame_id = "t";
        points_publisher = this->create_publisher<sensor_msgs::msg::PointCloud2>("/t_points", 10);
    }


    void setCloud(typename pcl::PointCloud<pcl::PointXYZI> cloud)
    {
        pcl::toROSMsg(cloud, msg);
        msg.header.stamp = get_clock()->now();
        points_publisher->publish(msg);
    };

private:

sensor_msgs::msg::PointCloud2 msg;
rclcpp::Publisher<sensor_msgs::msg::PointCloud2>::SharedPtr points_publisher;
};

Header for the other class:

class testclass{
public:
    testclass();
    virtual ~testclass();

protected:
    ROSNode::SharedPtr node_;
    void transmitTargetDataROS(pcl::PointCloud<pcl::PointXYZI> data);

};

Source file for the other class:

testclass::testclass(): node_(std::make_shared<ROSNode>())
{
    rclcpp::spin(node_);
}


void testclass::transmitTargetDataROS(pcl::PointCloud<pcl::PointXYZI> data)
{
    node_->setCloud(data);
}

I copied only relevant parts from the files.

Answer 1

ROSNode::SharedPtr is a typedef inside rclcpp::Node that is always a std::shared_ptr<rclcpp::Node>. As such, it cannot inherit the setCloud method from your custom node.

Juste replace with an explicit std::shared_ptr<ROSNode> and you should be fine.

Not relevant for the question but I do not get the use of typename in the setCloud argument. Additionally, the point cloud could be passed by (const) reference at it is probably a pretty large object.