1 Protocol Buffers - Google's data interchange format
2 ===================================================
4 Copyright 2008 Google Inc.
6 https://developers.google.com/protocol-buffers/
8 C++ Installation - Unix
9 -----------------------
11 If you get the source from github, you need to generate the configure script
16 This will download gtest source (which is used for C++ Protocol Buffer
17 unit-tests) to the current directory and run automake, autoconf, etc.
18 to generate the configure script and various template makefiles.
20 You can skip this step if you are using a release package (which already
21 contains gtest and the configure script).
23 To build and install the C++ Protocol Buffer runtime and the Protocol
24 Buffer compiler (protoc) execute the following:
31 If "make check" fails, you can still install, but it is likely that
32 some features of this library will not work correctly on your system.
33 Proceed at your own risk.
35 "make install" may require superuser privileges.
37 For advanced usage information on configure and make, see INSTALL.txt.
39 **Hint on install location**
41 By default, the package will be installed to /usr/local. However,
42 on many platforms, /usr/local/lib is not part of LD_LIBRARY_PATH.
43 You can add it, but it may be easier to just install to /usr
44 instead. To do this, invoke configure as follows:
46 ./configure --prefix=/usr
48 If you already built the package with a different prefix, make sure
49 to run "make clean" before building again.
51 **Compiling dependent packages**
53 To compile a package that uses Protocol Buffers, you need to pass
54 various flags to your compiler and linker. As of version 2.2.0,
55 Protocol Buffers integrates with pkg-config to manage this. If you
56 have pkg-config installed, then you can invoke it to get a list of
59 pkg-config --cflags protobuf # print compiler flags
60 pkg-config --libs protobuf # print linker flags
61 pkg-config --cflags --libs protobuf # print both
65 c++ my_program.cc my_proto.pb.cc `pkg-config --cflags --libs protobuf`
67 Note that packages written prior to the 2.2.0 release of Protocol
68 Buffers may not yet integrate with pkg-config to get flags, and may
69 not pass the correct set of flags to correctly link against
70 libprotobuf. If the package in question uses autoconf, you can
71 often fix the problem by invoking its configure script like:
73 configure CXXFLAGS="$(pkg-config --cflags protobuf)" \
74 LIBS="$(pkg-config --libs protobuf)"
76 This will force it to use the correct flags.
78 If you are writing an autoconf-based package that uses Protocol
79 Buffers, you should probably use the PKG_CHECK_MODULES macro in your
80 configure script like:
82 PKG_CHECK_MODULES([protobuf], [protobuf])
84 See the pkg-config man page for more info.
86 If you only want protobuf-lite, substitute "protobuf-lite" in place
87 of "protobuf" in these examples.
89 **Note for cross-compiling**
91 The makefiles normally invoke the protoc executable that they just
92 built in order to build tests. When cross-compiling, the protoc
93 executable may not be executable on the host machine. In this case,
94 you must build a copy of protoc for the host machine first, then use
95 the --with-protoc option to tell configure to use it instead. For
98 ./configure --with-protoc=protoc
100 This will use the installed protoc (found in your $PATH) instead of
101 trying to execute the one built during the build process. You can
102 also use an executable that hasn't been installed. For example, if
103 you built the protobuf package for your host machine in ../host,
106 ./configure --with-protoc=../host/src/protoc
108 Either way, you must make sure that the protoc executable you use
109 has the same version as the protobuf source code you are trying to
112 **Note for Solaris users**
114 Solaris 10 x86 has a bug that will make linking fail, complaining
115 about libstdc++.la being invalid. We have included a work-around
116 in this package. To use the work-around, run configure as follows:
118 ./configure LDFLAGS=-L$PWD/src/solaris
120 See src/solaris/libstdc++.la for more info on this bug.
122 **Note for HP C++ Tru64 users**
124 To compile invoke configure as follows:
126 ./configure CXXFLAGS="-O -std ansi -ieee -D__USE_STD_IOSTREAM"
128 Also, you will need to use gmake instead of make.
130 C++ Installation - Windows
131 --------------------------
133 If you are using Microsoft Visual C++, see vsprojects/readme.txt.
135 If you are using Cygwin or MinGW, follow the Unix installation
138 Binary Compatibility Warning
139 ----------------------------
141 Due to the nature of C++, it is unlikely that any two versions of the
142 Protocol Buffers C++ runtime libraries will have compatible ABIs.
143 That is, if you linked an executable against an older version of
144 libprotobuf, it is unlikely to work with a newer version without
145 re-compiling. This problem, when it occurs, will normally be detected
146 immediately on startup of your app. Still, you may want to consider
147 using static linkage. You can configure this package to install
148 static libraries only using:
150 ./configure --disable-shared
152 Java and Python Installation
153 ----------------------------
155 The Java and Python runtime libraries for Protocol Buffers are located
156 in the java and python directories. See the README file in each
157 directory for more information on how to compile and install them.
158 Note that both of them require you to first install the Protocol
159 Buffer compiler (protoc), which is part of the C++ package.
164 The complete documentation for Protocol Buffers is available via the
167 https://developers.google.com/protocol-buffers/