- Protocol Buffers - Home
- Protocol Buffers - Introduction
- Protocol Buffers - Basic App
- Protocol Buffers - Constructs
- Protocol Buffers - message
- Protocol Buffers - string
- Protocol Buffers - Numbers
- Protocol Buffers - bool
- Protocol Buffers - enum
- Protocol Buffers - repeated
- Protocol Buffers - map
- Protocol Buffers - Nested Class
- Protocol Buffers - Optionality & Defaults
- Protocol Buffers - Language Independence
- Protocol Buffers - Compound Data Types
- Protocol Buffers - Command Line Usage
- Protocol Buffers - Rules to Update Definition
- Protocol Buffers - Integration with Kafka
- Protocol Buffers - In Other Languages
- Protocol Buffers Useful Resources
- Protocol Buffers - Quick Guide
- Protocol Buffers - Useful Resources
- Protocol Buffers - Discussion
Protobuf (Protocol Buffers) Tutorial
Protocol Buffers is a library from Google. It provides efficient and language-independent ways to serialize the data. It supports serialization and deserialization from languages like Java, Python, Go, Dart, etc. It is one of the most popular serialization libraries used across industries by various companies.
The major use-case for Google Protocol Buffers is the serialization and deserialization of data which is simple and fast. Serialization and Deserialization a very important piece in microservices/distributed environment where lot of data is transferred across services. That is why, it becomes a very useful library in developing applications which require high scalability and performance.
This Protocol Buffers tutorial is based on the latest ProtoBuf 27.3 version.
What is Protocol Buffers
Google Protocol Buffers perform the serialization and deserialization of the objects to bytes which can be transferred over the network. It is the most popular and easy to use serialization library being language independent, easy to use and high efficiency.
Characteristics of Protocol Buffers
Following are important characteristics of Protocol Buffers −
Language independent − Multiple languages have Protocol Buffers library, few famous ones being Java, Python, Go, etc. So, a Java object can be serialized into bytes from a Java program and can be deserialized to a a Python object.
Efficient Data Compaction − In microservice environment, given that multiple communications take place over a network, it is critical that the data that we are sending is as succinct as possible. We need to avoid any superfluous information to ensure that the data is quickly transferred. Google Protocol Buffers have that as one of the focus areas.
Efficient serialization and deserialization − In microservice environment, given that multiple communications take place over a network, it is critical how fast can we serialize and deserialize. Google Protocol Buffers ensure that it is as quick as possible in serializing and deserializing the data.
Simple to use − Protocol Buffers library auto-generate serialization code (as we will see in the upcoming chapters), has a versioning scheme to ensure that the creator of data and the user of data can have separate versions of the serialization definition, etc.
Protocol Buffers Reference
The complete function and method references −
Download Protocol Buffers
You can download Protocol Buffers from GitHub release:Download Protocol Buffers Zip File
Audience
This tutorial deep dives into various components that make Google Protocol Buffers a very useful library. It is directed towards software professionals who want to develop highly scalable and performant applications. Post this tutorial, you would have intermediate knowledge of Protocol Buffers and its usage.
Prerequisites
To learn from this tutorial, you need to have a good hold over Java or Python and a basic knowledge of data structure is preferable.