| Protocol Buffers - Google's data interchange format |
| =================================================== |
| |
| [](https://travis-ci.org/google/protobuf) [](https://ci.appveyor.com/project/protobuf/protobuf) |
| |
| Copyright 2008 Google Inc. |
| |
| https://developers.google.com/protocol-buffers/ |
| |
| Overview |
| -------- |
| |
| Protocol Buffers (a.k.a., protobuf) are Google's language-neutral, |
| platform-neutral, extensible mechanism for serializing structured data. You |
| can find [protobuf's documentation on the Google Developers site](https://developers.google.com/protocol-buffers/). |
| |
| This README file contains protobuf installation instructions. To install |
| protobuf, you need to install the protocol compiler (used to compile .proto |
| files) and the protobuf runtime for your chosen programming language. |
| |
| Protocol Compiler Installation |
| ------------------------------ |
| |
| The protocol compiler is written in C++. If you are using C++, please follow |
| the [C++ Installation Instructions](src/README.md) to install protoc along |
| with the C++ runtime. |
| |
| For non-C++ users, the simplest way to install the protocol compiler is to |
| download a pre-built binary from our release page: |
| |
| [https://github.com/google/protobuf/releases](https://github.com/google/protobuf/releases) |
| |
| In the downloads section of each release, you can find pre-built binaries in |
| zip packages: protoc-$VERSION-$PLATFORM.zip. It contains the protoc binary |
| as well as a set of standard .proto files distributed along with protobuf. |
| |
| If you are looking for an old version that is not available in the release |
| page, check out the maven repo here: |
| |
| [http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/com/google/protobuf/protoc/](http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/com/google/protobuf/protoc/) |
| |
| These pre-built binaries are only provided for released versions. If you want |
| to use the github master version at HEAD, or you need to modify protobuf code, |
| or you are using C++, it's recommended to build your own protoc binary from |
| source. |
| |
| If you would like to build protoc binary from source, see the [C++ Installation |
| Instructions](src/README.md). |
| |
| Protobuf Runtime Installation |
| ----------------------------- |
| |
| Protobuf supports several different programming languages. For each programming |
| language, you can find instructions in the corresponding source directory about |
| how to install protobuf runtime for that specific language: |
| |
| | Language | Source | |
| |--------------------------------------|-------------------------------------------------------| |
| | C++ (include C++ runtime and protoc) | [src](src) | |
| | Java | [java](java) | |
| | Python | [python](python) | |
| | Objective-C | [objectivec](objectivec) | |
| | C# | [csharp](csharp) | |
| | JavaNano | [javanano](javanano) | |
| | JavaScript | [js](js) | |
| | Ruby | [ruby](ruby) | |
| | Go | [golang/protobuf](https://github.com/golang/protobuf) | |
| | PHP | TBD | |
| |
| |
| Usage |
| ----- |
| |
| The complete documentation for Protocol Buffers is available via the |
| web at: |
| |
| https://developers.google.com/protocol-buffers/ |
