1Protocol Buffers - Google's data interchange format 2=================================================== 3 4Copyright 2008 Google Inc. 5 6https://developers.google.com/protocol-buffers/ 7 8Overview 9-------- 10 11Protocol Buffers (a.k.a., protobuf) are Google's language-neutral, 12platform-neutral, extensible mechanism for serializing structured data. You 13can find [protobuf's documentation on the Google Developers site](https://developers.google.com/protocol-buffers/). 14 15This README file contains protobuf installation instructions. To install 16protobuf, you need to install the protocol compiler (used to compile .proto 17files) and the protobuf runtime for your chosen programming language. 18 19Protocol Compiler Installation 20------------------------------ 21 22The protocol compiler is written in C++. If you are using C++, please follow 23the [C++ Installation Instructions](src/README.md) to install protoc along 24with the C++ runtime. 25 26For non-C++ users, the simplest way to install the protocol compiler is to 27download a pre-built binary from our release page: 28 29 [https://github.com/protocolbuffers/protobuf/releases](https://github.com/protocolbuffers/protobuf/releases) 30 31In the downloads section of each release, you can find pre-built binaries in 32zip packages: protoc-$VERSION-$PLATFORM.zip. It contains the protoc binary 33as well as a set of standard .proto files distributed along with protobuf. 34 35If you are looking for an old version that is not available in the release 36page, check out the maven repo here: 37 38 [https://repo1.maven.org/maven2/com/google/protobuf/protoc/](https://repo1.maven.org/maven2/com/google/protobuf/protoc/) 39 40These pre-built binaries are only provided for released versions. If you want 41to use the github main version at HEAD, or you need to modify protobuf code, 42or you are using C++, it's recommended to build your own protoc binary from 43source. 44 45If you would like to build protoc binary from source, see the [C++ Installation 46Instructions](src/README.md). 47 48Protobuf Runtime Installation 49----------------------------- 50 51Protobuf supports several different programming languages. For each programming 52language, you can find instructions in the corresponding source directory about 53how to install protobuf runtime for that specific language: 54 55| Language | Source | 56|--------------------------------------|-------------------------------------------------------------| 57| C++ (include C++ runtime and protoc) | [src](src) | 58| Java | [java](java) | 59| Python | [python](python) | 60| Objective-C | [objectivec](objectivec) | 61| C# | [csharp](csharp) | 62| Ruby | [ruby](ruby) | 63| Go | [protocolbuffers/protobuf-go](https://github.com/protocolbuffers/protobuf-go)| 64| PHP | [php](php) | 65| Dart | [dart-lang/protobuf](https://github.com/dart-lang/protobuf) | 66 67Quick Start 68----------- 69 70The best way to learn how to use protobuf is to follow the tutorials in our 71developer guide: 72 73https://developers.google.com/protocol-buffers/docs/tutorials 74 75If you want to learn from code examples, take a look at the examples in the 76[examples](examples) directory. 77 78Documentation 79------------- 80 81The complete documentation for Protocol Buffers is available via the 82web at: 83 84https://developers.google.com/protocol-buffers/ 85