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/