Bug report

Required Info:

• Operating System: Ubuntu focal
• Installation type: binaries
• Version or commit hash: 9.2.0-1focal.20211222.233616
• DDS implementation: N/A?
• Client library (if applicable): rclcpp

Steps to reproduce issue

Compile and run this program:

#include "rclcpp/rclcpp.hpp"

class TestNode : public rclcpp::Node {
 public:
  TestNode() : Node("test_node") {
    RCLCPP_FATAL(get_logger(), "fatal error");
    RCLCPP_INFO(get_logger(), "shouldn't see this line");
  }
};

int main(int argc, char** argv) {
  rclcpp::init(argc, argv);
  rclcpp::spin(std::make_shared<TestNode>());
  rclcpp::shutdown();
  return 0;
}

Expected behavior

RCLCPP_FATAL should exit this program. Looking at past PR reviews, @wjwwood also expected this in this comment, if I understand that correctly.

Actual behavior

I see

[FATAL] [1642633730.613062155] [test_node]: fatal error
[INFO] [1642633730.613141427] [test_node]: shouldn't see this line
^C[INFO] [1642633740.323608940] [rclcpp]: signal_handler(signal_value=2)

Additional information

Originally discovered here: moveit/moveit2#734 (comment). In that case, a downstream consumer project (moveit2) is using RCLCPP_FATAL thinking that it will crash the program. However, it doesn't. This leads to nullptr exceptions later.

However, simply "fixing" this can have unintended side effects either. A search across Github with RCLCPP_FATAL reveals projects where they clearly know that the FATAL macro doesn't exit the program. Fixing this could break backward compatibility and be a bit problematic for them.