1Protocol Buffers - Google's data interchange format 2Copyright 2008 Google Inc. 3http://code.google.com/apis/protocolbuffers/ 4 5C++ Installation - Unix 6======================= 7 8To build and install the C++ Protocol Buffer runtime and the Protocol 9Buffer compiler (protoc) execute the following: 10 11 $ ./configure 12 $ make 13 $ make check 14 $ make install 15 16If "make check" fails, you can still install, but it is likely that 17some features of this library will not work correctly on your system. 18Proceed at your own risk. 19 20"make install" may require superuser privileges. 21 22For advanced usage information on configure and make, see INSTALL.txt. 23 24** Hint on install location ** 25 26 By default, the package will be installed to /usr/local. However, 27 on many platforms, /usr/local/lib is not part of LD_LIBRARY_PATH. 28 You can add it, but it may be easier to just install to /usr 29 instead. To do this, invoke configure as follows: 30 31 ./configure --prefix=/usr 32 33 If you already built the package with a different prefix, make sure 34 to run "make clean" before building again. 35 36** Compiling dependent packages ** 37 38 To compile a package that uses Protocol Buffers, you need to pass 39 various flags to your compiler and linker. As of version 2.2.0, 40 Protocol Buffers integrates with pkg-config to manage this. If you 41 have pkg-config installed, then you can invoke it to get a list of 42 flags like so: 43 44 pkg-config --cflags protobuf # print compiler flags 45 pkg-config --libs protobuf # print linker flags 46 pkg-config --cflags --libs protobuf # print both 47 48 For example: 49 50 c++ my_program.cc my_proto.pb.cc `pkg-config --cflags --libs protobuf` 51 52 Note that packages written prior to the 2.2.0 release of Protocol 53 Buffers may not yet integrate with pkg-config to get flags, and may 54 not pass the correct set of flags to correctly link against 55 libprotobuf. If the package in question uses autoconf, you can 56 often fix the problem by invoking its configure script like: 57 58 configure CXXFLAGS="$(pkg-config --cflags protobuf)" \ 59 LIBS="$(pkg-config --libs protobuf)" 60 61 This will force it to use the correct flags. 62 63 If you are writing an autoconf-based package that uses Protocol 64 Buffers, you should probably use the PKG_CHECK_MODULES macro in your 65 configure script like: 66 67 PKG_CHECK_MODULES([protobuf], [protobuf]) 68 69 See the pkg-config man page for more info. 70 71 If you only want protobuf-lite, substitute "protobuf-lite" in place 72 of "protobuf" in these examples. 73 74** Note for cross-compiling ** 75 76 The makefiles normally invoke the protoc executable that they just 77 built in order to build tests. When cross-compiling, the protoc 78 executable may not be executable on the host machine. In this case, 79 you must build a copy of protoc for the host machine first, then use 80 the --with-protoc option to tell configure to use it instead. For 81 example: 82 83 ./configure --with-protoc=protoc 84 85 This will use the installed protoc (found in your $PATH) instead of 86 trying to execute the one built during the build process. You can 87 also use an executable that hasn't been installed. For example, if 88 you built the protobuf package for your host machine in ../host, 89 you might do: 90 91 ./configure --with-protoc=../host/src/protoc 92 93 Either way, you must make sure that the protoc executable you use 94 has the same version as the protobuf source code you are trying to 95 use it with. 96 97** Note for Solaris users ** 98 99 Solaris 10 x86 has a bug that will make linking fail, complaining 100 about libstdc++.la being invalid. We have included a work-around 101 in this package. To use the work-around, run configure as follows: 102 103 ./configure LDFLAGS=-L$PWD/src/solaris 104 105 See src/solaris/libstdc++.la for more info on this bug. 106 107** Note for HP C++ Tru64 users ** 108 109 To compile invoke configure as follows: 110 111 ./configure CXXFLAGS="-O -std ansi -ieee -D__USE_STD_IOSTREAM" 112 113 Also, you will need to use gmake instead of make. 114 115C++ Installation - Windows 116========================== 117 118If you are using Micosoft Visual C++, see vsprojects/readme.txt. 119 120If you are using Cygwin or MinGW, follow the Unix installation 121instructions, above. 122 123Binary Compatibility Warning 124============================ 125 126Due to the nature of C++, it is unlikely that any two versions of the 127Protocol Buffers C++ runtime libraries will have compatible ABIs. 128That is, if you linked an executable against an older version of 129libprotobuf, it is unlikely to work with a newer version without 130re-compiling. This problem, when it occurs, will normally be detected 131immediately on startup of your app. Still, you may want to consider 132using static linkage. You can configure this package to install 133static libraries only using: 134 135 ./configure --disable-shared 136 137Java and Python Installation 138============================ 139 140The Java and Python runtime libraries for Protocol Buffers are located 141in the java and python directories. See the README file in each 142directory for more information on how to compile and install them. 143Note that both of them require you to first install the Protocol 144Buffer compiler (protoc), which is part of the C++ package. 145 146Usage 147===== 148 149The complete documentation for Protocol Buffers is available via the 150web at: 151 152 http://code.google.com/apis/protocolbuffers/ 153