/ˈproʊtəˌkɒl ˈbʌfərz/
n. “The compact language for talking to machines.”
Protocol Buffers, often abbreviated as Protobuf, is a language- and platform-neutral mechanism for serializing structured data, developed by Google. It allows developers to define data structures in a .proto file, which can then be compiled into code for multiple programming languages. This provides a fast, efficient, and strongly-typed way for systems to communicate or store data.
Key characteristics of Protocol Buffers include:
- Compact and Efficient: Uses a binary format that is smaller and faster to parse than text-based formats like JSON or XML.
- Strongly Typed: Enforces data types and structure at compile time, reducing runtime errors.
- Cross-Language Support: Supports multiple languages including Java, Python, C++, Go, and more.
- Extensible: Fields can be added or deprecated over time without breaking backward compatibility.
Here’s a simple example of defining a message using Protocol Buffers:
syntax = "proto3";
message Person {
string name = 1;
int32 age = 2;
string email = 3;
}After compiling this .proto file, you can use the generated code in your application to serialize and deserialize Person objects efficiently across systems.
In essence, Protocol Buffers is a high-performance, language-agnostic format for structured data that is ideal for communication between services, data storage, and APIs, providing both speed and reliability.