Serialization

/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:

/ˈbeɪsˌsɪkstiˈfɔːr/

[from base (numeral system) + 64 (character set size)]