Detailed explanation of Protobuf and the introduction guide

Detailed explanation of Protobuf and the introduction guide

Hello everyone, I'm building a free coupon check rebaterobotIf you save money and earn commissions, you can use Weizhuo Taoke System 3.0. You are also a programmer who doesn’t wear long pants in winter and wants to be handsome even when it’s cold! existDistributed SystemsIn cross-platform communication, efficient and lightweight serialization protocols are particularly important. Google's Protocol Buffers (Protobuf for short) is a data serialization format that is widely used. It is not only fast and takes up little space, but also supports multiple programming languages, making it ideal for applications that require high-performance communications. This article will introduce in detail the basic concepts, usage methods and advantages of Protobuf.

What isProtobuf

Protobuf is a language-independent and platform-independent scalable mechanism developed by Google for serializing structured data. Simply put, it can convert structured data into a byte stream for easy transmission or persistence of storage on the network, while also recovering the original data structure from the byte stream.

The basic concept of Protobuf

.proto file

The use of Protobuf first requires defining the message structure, which is stored in a.protoin the file. A simple .proto file is as follows:

syntax = "proto3";

message Person {
  int32 id = 1;
  string name = 2;
  string email = 3;
}

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This file defines a name calledPersonThe message structure includes three fields:id、nameandemail。

Compile .proto file

After defining the .proto file, you need to use protocCompilerCompile it into code for a specific programming language. Taking Java as an example, the compilation command is as follows:

protoc --java_out=. 

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This will generate the corresponding Java class and can be used directly in the code.

Serialization and deserialization

The compiled class contains methods of serialization and deserialization, which can conveniently convert message objects into byte arrays or restore them from byte arrays to message objects. Here is a simple Java example:

// Create a Person object
Person person = Person.newBuilder()
                      .setId(1)
                      .setName("Alice")
                      .setEmail("alice@")
                      .build();

// Serialization
byte[] data = person.toByteArray();

// Deserialization
Person person2 = Person.parseFrom(data);

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Advantages of Protobuf

Efficient binary format

Compared with text formats such as JSON and XML, Protobuf uses binary format for encoding, which has higher data transmission and storage efficiency, takes up less space and faster parsing speed.

Strong type system

Protobuf provides a strong typed system that ensures the type safety of data structures and reduces errors caused by type mismatch.

Backward compatibility and forward compatibility

Protobuf supports messageVersion control, it is easy to add new fields without affecting the old message format. This allows the system to be smoothly upgraded and evolved between different versions.

Multilingual support

Protobuf supports a variety of programming languages, including Java, C++, Python, Go, etc., making it very convenient for cross-language communication.

Protobuf usage scenarios

Distributed Systems

In distributed systems, efficient communication between nodes is required. Protobuf's efficient encoding and decoding makes it ideal. For example, gRPC is a high-performance RPC framework based on Protobuf, which is widely used inMicroservice architecturemiddle.

Data storage

Protobuf is not only suitable for data transmission, but also for efficient data storage. For example, many big data systems use Protobuf to store structured data to reduce storage space and increase access speed.

Configuration File

When sharing configuration files across platforms is required, using Protobuf ensures consistency and efficient parsing of configuration data.

Getting started

Install ProtobufCompiler

First, download and install the Protobuf compiler protoc, you canProtobuf's GitHub repositoryGet the latest version. After installation, you can check whether the installation is successful by following the command:

protoc --version

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Create a .proto file

Create a new .proto file and define the message structure. For example, create a name calledFile:

syntax = "proto3";

message Person {
  int32 id = 1;
  string name = 2;
  string email = 3;
}

message AddressBook {
  repeated Person people = 1;
}

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Compile .proto file

Use the protoc compiler to compile the .proto file into the code of the target language. For example, compile to Java code:

protoc --java_out=. 

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Use generated classes in code

Compiled generated classes can be used directly in the code, such as creating, serializing, and deserializing AddressBook objects.

AddressBook.Builder addressBook = AddressBook.newBuilder();
Person person = Person.newBuilder()
                      .setId(1)
                      .setName("Alice")
                      .setEmail("alice@")
                      .build();
addressBook.addPeople(person);

// Serialization
byte[] data = addressBook.build().toByteArray();

// Deserialization
AddressBook addressBook2 = AddressBook.parseFrom(data);

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Summarize

As an efficient serialization protocol, Protobuf has the advantages of fast speed, small space, strong type system, backward compatibility and multilingual support.