Show all
Featured downloads:
protobuf-2.1.0.tar.bz2 protobuf-2.1.0.tar.gz protobuf-2.1.0.zip protoc-2.1.0-win32.zip
protobuf-2.1.0.tar.bz2 protobuf-2.1.0.tar.gz protobuf-2.1.0.zip protoc-2.1.0-win32.zip
What is it?
Protocol Buffers are a way of encoding structured data in an efficient yet extensible format. Google uses Protocol Buffers for almost all of its internal RPC protocols and file formats.
Documentation
Discussion
Quick Example
You write a .proto file like this:
message Person {
required int32 id = 1;
required string name = 2;
optional string email = 3;
}Then you compile it with protoc, the protocol buffer compiler, to produce code in C++, Java, or Python.
Then, if you are using C++, you use that code like this:
Person person;
person.set_id(123);
person.set_name("Bob");
person.set_email("bob@example.com");
fstream out("person.pb", ios::out | ios::binary | ios::trunc);
person.SerializeToOstream(&out);
out.close();Or like this:
Person person;
fstream in("person.pb", ios::in | ios::binary);
if (!person.ParseFromIstream(&in)) {
cerr << "Failed to parse person.pb." << endl;
exit(1);
}
cout << "ID: " << person.id() << endl;
cout << "name: " << person.name() << endl;
if (person.has_email()) {
cout << "e-mail: " << person.email() << endl;
}For a more complete example, see the tutorials.