C++ Reference

google::protobuf

google::protobuf::io

Auxiliary classes used for I/O.

The Protobuf library uses the classes in this package to deal with I/O and encoding/decoding raw bytes. Most users will not need to deal with this package. However, users who want to adapt the system to work with their own I/O abstractions – e.g., to allow Protobuf messages to be read from a different kind of input stream without the need for a temporary buffer – should take a closer look.

google::protobuf::util

Utility classes.

This package contains various utilities for message comparison, JSON conversion, well known types, etc.

google::protobuf::compiler

Implementation of the Protobuf compiler.

This package contains code for parsing .proto files and generating code based on them. There are two reasons you might be interested in this package:

• You want to parse .proto files at runtime. In this case, you should look at importer.h. Since this functionality is widely useful, it is included in the libprotobuf base library; you do not have to link against libprotoc.
• You want to write a custom protocol compiler which generates different kinds of code, e.g. code in a different language which is not supported by the official compiler. For this purpose, command_line_interface.h provides you with a complete compiler front-end, so all you need to do is write a custom implementation of CodeGenerator and a trivial main() function. You can even make your compiler support the official languages in addition to your own. Since this functionality is only useful to those writing custom compilers, it is in a separate library called "libprotoc" which you will have to link against.