1
Protocol Buffers - Google's data interchange format
2
Copyright 2008 Google Inc.
3
http://code.google.com/apis/protocolbuffers/
5
C++ Installation - Unix
6
=======================
8
To build and install the C++ Protocol Buffer runtime and the Protocol
9
Buffer compiler (protoc) execute the following:
16
If "make check" fails, you can still install, but it is likely that
17
some features of this library will not work correctly on your system.
18
Proceed at your own risk.
20
"make install" may require superuser privileges.
22
For advanced usage information on configure and make, see INSTALL.txt.
24
** Hint on install location **
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:
31
./configure --prefix=/usr
33
If you already built the package with a different prefix, make sure
34
to run "make clean" before building again.
36
** Compiling dependent packages **
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
44
pkg-config --cflags protobuf # print compiler flags
45
pkg-config --libs protobuf # print linker flags
46
pkg-config --cflags --libs protobuf # print both
50
c++ my_program.cc my_proto.pb.cc `pkg-config --cflags --libs protobuf`
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:
58
configure CXXFLAGS="$(pkg-config --cflags protobuf)" \
59
LIBS="$(pkg-config --libs protobuf)"
61
This will force it to use the correct flags.
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:
67
PKG_CHECK_MODULES([protobuf], [protobuf])
69
See the pkg-config man page for more info.
71
If you only want protobuf-lite, substitute "protobuf-lite" in place
72
of "protobuf" in these examples.
74
** Note for cross-compiling **
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
83
./configure --with-protoc=protoc
85
This will use the installed protoc (found in your $PATH) instead of
86
trying to execute the one built during the build process. You can
87
also use an executable that hasn't been installed. For example, if
88
you built the protobuf package for your host machine in ../host,
91
./configure --with-protoc=../host/src/protoc
93
Either way, you must make sure that the protoc executable you use
94
has the same version as the protobuf source code you are trying to
97
** Note for Solaris users **
99
Solaris 10 x86 has a bug that will make linking fail, complaining
100
about libstdc++.la being invalid. We have included a work-around
101
in this package. To use the work-around, run configure as follows:
103
./configure LDFLAGS=-L$PWD/src/solaris
105
See src/solaris/libstdc++.la for more info on this bug.
107
** Note for HP C++ Tru64 users **
109
To compile invoke configure as follows:
111
./configure CXXFLAGS="-O -std ansi -ieee -D__USE_STD_IOSTREAM"
113
Also, you will need to use gmake instead of make.
115
C++ Installation - Windows
116
==========================
118
If you are using Micosoft Visual C++, see vsprojects/readme.txt.
120
If you are using Cygwin or MinGW, follow the Unix installation
123
Binary Compatibility Warning
124
============================
126
Due to the nature of C++, it is unlikely that any two versions of the
127
Protocol Buffers C++ runtime libraries will have compatible ABIs.
128
That is, if you linked an executable against an older version of
129
libprotobuf, it is unlikely to work with a newer version without
130
re-compiling. This problem, when it occurs, will normally be detected
131
immediately on startup of your app. Still, you may want to consider
132
using static linkage. You can configure this package to install
133
static libraries only using:
135
./configure --disable-shared
137
Java and Python Installation
138
============================
140
The Java and Python runtime libraries for Protocol Buffers are located
141
in the java and python directories. See the README file in each
142
directory for more information on how to compile and install them.
143
Note that both of them require you to first install the Protocol
144
Buffer compiler (protoc), which is part of the C++ package.
149
The complete documentation for Protocol Buffers is available via the
152
http://code.google.com/apis/protocolbuffers/