Breaking changes in YARP February 2025 (was Unstable CI failure February 2025)

[traversaro]

2025-01-31T02:49:04.1755901Z [3/56] Building CXX object src/devices/frameTransformGet_nwc_ros/CMakeFiles/yarp_frameTransformGet_nwc_ros.dir/yarp_plugin_frameTransformGet_nwc_ros.cpp.o
2025-01-31T02:49:04.1758199Z FAILED: src/devices/frameTransformGet_nwc_ros/CMakeFiles/yarp_frameTransformGet_nwc_ros.dir/yarp_plugin_frameTransformGet_nwc_ros.cpp.o 
2025-01-31T02:49:04.1769468Z /home/runner/miniconda3/envs/test/bin/x86_64-conda-linux-gnu-c++ -Dyarp_frameTransformGet_nwc_ros_EXPORTS -isystem /home/runner/work/robotology-superbuild/robotology-superbuild/b/install/include -Wall -Wextra -Wsign-compare -Wpointer-arith -Winit-self -Wnon-virtual-dtor -Wcast-align -Wunused -Wunused-but-set-variable -Wvla -Wmissing-include-dirs -Wlogical-op -Wreorder -Wsizeof-pointer-memaccess -Woverloaded-virtual -Wmismatched-new-delete -Wundef -Wredundant-decls -Wunknown-pragmas -Wunused-result -Wc++2a-compat -Wignored-attributes -Wdangling-else -Wmisleading-indentation -Wtautological-compare -Wsuggest-override -Wmaybe-uninitialized  -Wno-unused-parameter  -Wdeprecated-declarations -fvisibility-inlines-hidden -fmessage-length=0 -march=nocona -mtune=haswell -ftree-vectorize -fPIC -fstack-protector-strong -fno-plt -O2 -ffunction-sections -pipe -isystem /home/runner/miniconda3/envs/test/include -fvisibility-inlines-hidden -fmessage-length=0 -march=nocona -mtune=haswell -ftree-vectorize -fPIC -fstack-protector-strong -fno-plt -O2 -ffunction-sections -pipe -isystem /home/runner/miniconda3/envs/test/include -O3 -DNDEBUG -std=c++20 -fPIC -MD -MT src/devices/frameTransformGet_nwc_ros/CMakeFiles/yarp_frameTransformGet_nwc_ros.dir/yarp_plugin_frameTransformGet_nwc_ros.cpp.o -MF src/devices/frameTransformGet_nwc_ros/CMakeFiles/yarp_frameTransformGet_nwc_ros.dir/yarp_plugin_frameTransformGet_nwc_ros.cpp.o.d -o src/devices/frameTransformGet_nwc_ros/CMakeFiles/yarp_frameTransformGet_nwc_ros.dir/yarp_plugin_frameTransformGet_nwc_ros.cpp.o -c /home/runner/work/robotology-superbuild/robotology-superbuild/b/src/yarp-devices-ros/src/devices/frameTransformGet_nwc_ros/yarp_plugin_frameTransformGet_nwc_ros.cpp
2025-01-31T02:49:04.1781384Z In file included from /home/runner/work/robotology-superbuild/robotology-superbuild/b/src/yarp-devices-ros/src/devices/frameTransformGet_nwc_ros/yarp_plugin_frameTransformGet_nwc_ros.cpp:10:
2025-01-31T02:49:04.1784298Z /home/runner/work/robotology-superbuild/robotology-superbuild/src/yarp-devices-ros/src/devices/frameTransformGet_nwc_ros/FrameTransformGet_nwc_ros.h:85:10: error: conflicting return type specified for 'virtual bool FrameTransformGet_nwc_ros::getTransforms(std::vector<yarp::math::FrameTransform>&) const'
2025-01-31T02:49:04.1786499Z    85 |     bool getTransforms(std::vector<yarp::math::FrameTransform>& transforms) const override;
2025-01-31T02:49:04.1787285Z       |          ^~~~~~~~~~~~~
2025-01-31T02:49:04.1788453Z In file included from /home/runner/work/robotology-superbuild/robotology-superbuild/src/yarp-devices-ros/src/devices/frameTransformGet_nwc_ros/FrameTransformGet_nwc_ros.h:18:
2025-01-31T02:49:04.1791121Z /home/runner/work/robotology-superbuild/robotology-superbuild/b/install/include/yarp/dev/IFrameTransformStorage.h:78:36: note: overridden function is 'virtual yarp::dev::ReturnValue yarp::dev::IFrameTransformStorageGet::getTransforms(std::vector<yarp::math::FrameTransform>&) const'
2025-01-31T02:49:04.1793327Z    78 |     virtual yarp::dev::ReturnValue getTransforms(std::vector<yarp::math::FrameTransform>& transforms) const = 0;
2025-01-31T02:49:04.1794090Z       |                                    ^~~~~~~~~~~~~

Effect of robotology/yarp#3169. As we announced anyhow that we are dropping ros1 compatibility in 2025.02 in https://github.com/orgs/robotology/discussions/720, I guess we can just drop it.

[traversaro]

#1789 fix some problems, but now we get another list of errors that are probably due to the use in YARP of a public C++20 dependency:

2025-01-31T08:40:36.4495013Z /home/runner/miniconda3/envs/test/include/OGRE/OgreMemorySTLAllocator.h:126:44: error: 'const_pointer' in 'class std::allocator<void>' does not name a type
2025-01-31T08:40:36.4496371Z   126 |             typename std::allocator<void>::const_pointer ptr = 0 )
2025-01-31T08:40:36.4496943Z       |  

and

2025-01-31T08:39:13.4575821Z /home/runner/miniconda3/envs/test/include/gz/transport13/gz/transport/SubscriptionHandler.hh:202:20:   required from here
2025-01-31T08:39:13.4577285Z /home/runner/miniconda3/envs/test/include/google/protobuf/port.h:176:17: error: static assertion failed
2025-01-31T08:39:13.4578171Z   176 |   static_assert(!requires {
2025-01-31T08:39:13.4578820Z       |                 ^~~~~~~~~~~
2025-01-31T08:39:13.4579275Z   177 |     std::derived_from<std::remove_pointer_t<To>,
2025-01-31T08:39:13.4579761Z       |     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2025-01-31T08:39:13.4580565Z   178 |                       typename std::remove_pointer_t<To>::MessageLite>;
2025-01-31T08:39:13.4581131Z       |                       ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2025-01-31T08:39:13.4581585Z   179 |   });
2025-01-31T08:39:13.4581881Z       |   ~              

[traversaro]

Other failures: robotology/yarp#3169 (comment) . Given the amount of failures, the easiest option for now is to pin YARP in Unstable branches to an earlier version, and address this failures in downstream projects, mainly:

• https://github.com/ami-iit/yarp-device-openxrheadset
• https://github.com/robotology/gazebo-yarp-plugins
• Fix compatibility with yarp::dev::ReturnValue yarp-devices-ros2#79

[traversaro]

One tricky aspect is that YARP switching to requiring C++20 in its headers make it practically impossible to build compilation units that include both YARP (that required C++20) with abseil (that has a different ABI if compiled with C++17 vs C++20, see abseil/abseil-cpp#1280). While we do not use frequently abseil directly, abseil is a public dependency of protobuf that is itself a public dependency of many projects, including the gz-* (gazebo) libraries.

[traversaro]

I updated the title of the issue to reflect more the actual problems, that are:

• Change of signature in IFrameTransform::canTransform and IFrameTransform::frameExists`
• Public requirement of C++20 for downstream projects using YARP

[traversaro]

In the meanwhile, I prepare a workaround in #1789 .

[traversaro]

robotology/yarp#3173 may help on this.

[traversaro]

fyi @Nicogene there will probably be a few breaking changes in YARP 3.11.0, we may need to evaluate if we are able to integrate it in 2025.02.0 or not.