1Protocol Buffers - Google's data interchange format 2=================================================== 3 4[](https://travis-ci.org/google/protobuf) [](https://ci.appveyor.com/project/protobuf/protobuf) 5 6Copyright 2008 Google Inc. 7 8https://developers.google.com/protocol-buffers/ 9 10C++ Installation - Unix 11----------------------- 12 13To build protobuf from source, the following tools are needed: 14 15 * autoconf 16 * automake 17 * libtool 18 * curl (used to download gmock) 19 * make 20 * g++ 21 * unzip 22 23On Ubuntu, you can install them with: 24 25 $ sudo apt-get install autoconf automake libtool curl make g++ unzip 26 27On other platforms, please use the corresponding package managing tool to 28install them before proceeding. 29 30If you get the source from github, you need to generate the configure script 31first: 32 33 $ ./autogen.sh 34 35This will download gmock source (which is used for C++ Protocol Buffer 36unit-tests) to the current directory and run automake, autoconf, etc. 37to generate the configure script and various template makefiles. 38 39You can skip this step if you are using a release package (which already 40contains gmock and the configure script). 41 42To build and install the C++ Protocol Buffer runtime and the Protocol 43Buffer compiler (protoc) execute the following: 44 45 $ ./configure 46 $ make 47 $ make check 48 $ sudo make install 49 $ sudo ldconfig # refresh shared library cache. 50 51If "make check" fails, you can still install, but it is likely that 52some features of this library will not work correctly on your system. 53Proceed at your own risk. 54 55For advanced usage information on configure and make, please refer to the 56autoconf documentation: 57 58 http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/manual/autoconf.html#Running-configure-Scripts 59 60**Hint on install location** 61 62 By default, the package will be installed to /usr/local. However, 63 on many platforms, /usr/local/lib is not part of LD_LIBRARY_PATH. 64 You can add it, but it may be easier to just install to /usr 65 instead. To do this, invoke configure as follows: 66 67 ./configure --prefix=/usr 68 69 If you already built the package with a different prefix, make sure 70 to run "make clean" before building again. 71 72**Compiling dependent packages** 73 74 To compile a package that uses Protocol Buffers, you need to pass 75 various flags to your compiler and linker. As of version 2.2.0, 76 Protocol Buffers integrates with pkg-config to manage this. If you 77 have pkg-config installed, then you can invoke it to get a list of 78 flags like so: 79 80 pkg-config --cflags protobuf # print compiler flags 81 pkg-config --libs protobuf # print linker flags 82 pkg-config --cflags --libs protobuf # print both 83 84 For example: 85 86 c++ my_program.cc my_proto.pb.cc `pkg-config --cflags --libs protobuf` 87 88 Note that packages written prior to the 2.2.0 release of Protocol 89 Buffers may not yet integrate with pkg-config to get flags, and may 90 not pass the correct set of flags to correctly link against 91 libprotobuf. If the package in question uses autoconf, you can 92 often fix the problem by invoking its configure script like: 93 94 configure CXXFLAGS="$(pkg-config --cflags protobuf)" \ 95 LIBS="$(pkg-config --libs protobuf)" 96 97 This will force it to use the correct flags. 98 99 If you are writing an autoconf-based package that uses Protocol 100 Buffers, you should probably use the PKG_CHECK_MODULES macro in your 101 configure script like: 102 103 PKG_CHECK_MODULES([protobuf], [protobuf]) 104 105 See the pkg-config man page for more info. 106 107 If you only want protobuf-lite, substitute "protobuf-lite" in place 108 of "protobuf" in these examples. 109 110**Note for Mac users** 111 112 For a Mac system, Unix tools are not available by default. You will first need 113 to install Xcode from the Mac AppStore and then run the following command from 114 a terminal: 115 116 $ sudo xcode-select --install 117 118 To install Unix tools, you can install "port" following the instructions at 119 https://www.macports.org . This will reside in /opt/local/bin/port for most 120 Mac installations. 121 122 $ sudo /opt/local/bin/port install autoconf automake libtool 123 124 Then follow the Unix instructions above. 125 126**Note for cross-compiling** 127 128 The makefiles normally invoke the protoc executable that they just 129 built in order to build tests. When cross-compiling, the protoc 130 executable may not be executable on the host machine. In this case, 131 you must build a copy of protoc for the host machine first, then use 132 the --with-protoc option to tell configure to use it instead. For 133 example: 134 135 ./configure --with-protoc=protoc 136 137 This will use the installed protoc (found in your $PATH) instead of 138 trying to execute the one built during the build process. You can 139 also use an executable that hasn't been installed. For example, if 140 you built the protobuf package for your host machine in ../host, 141 you might do: 142 143 ./configure --with-protoc=../host/src/protoc 144 145 Either way, you must make sure that the protoc executable you use 146 has the same version as the protobuf source code you are trying to 147 use it with. 148 149**Note for Solaris users** 150 151 Solaris 10 x86 has a bug that will make linking fail, complaining 152 about libstdc++.la being invalid. We have included a work-around 153 in this package. To use the work-around, run configure as follows: 154 155 ./configure LDFLAGS=-L$PWD/src/solaris 156 157 See src/solaris/libstdc++.la for more info on this bug. 158 159**Note for HP C++ Tru64 users** 160 161 To compile invoke configure as follows: 162 163 ./configure CXXFLAGS="-O -std ansi -ieee -D__USE_STD_IOSTREAM" 164 165 Also, you will need to use gmake instead of make. 166 167**Note for AIX users** 168 169 Compile using the IBM xlC C++ compiler as follows: 170 171 ./configure CXX=xlC 172 173 Also, you will need to use GNU `make` (`gmake`) instead of AIX `make`. 174 175C++ Installation - Windows 176-------------------------- 177 178If you only need the protoc binary, you can download it from the release 179page: 180 181 https://github.com/google/protobuf/releases 182 183In the downloads section, download the zip file protoc-$VERSION-win32.zip. 184It contains the protoc binary as well as public proto files of protobuf 185library. 186 187To build from source using Microsoft Visual C++, see [cmake/README.md](../cmake/README.md). 188 189To build from source using Cygwin or MinGW, follow the Unix installation 190instructions, above. 191 192Binary Compatibility Warning 193---------------------------- 194 195Due to the nature of C++, it is unlikely that any two versions of the 196Protocol Buffers C++ runtime libraries will have compatible ABIs. 197That is, if you linked an executable against an older version of 198libprotobuf, it is unlikely to work with a newer version without 199re-compiling. This problem, when it occurs, will normally be detected 200immediately on startup of your app. Still, you may want to consider 201using static linkage. You can configure this package to install 202static libraries only using: 203 204 ./configure --disable-shared 205 206Usage 207----- 208 209The complete documentation for Protocol Buffers is available via the 210web at: 211 212 https://developers.google.com/protocol-buffers/ 213
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