Flat Buffers - union

Quiz

Overview

The union data type is one of the composite datatypes of Flat Buffers. It is used to create a flexible data struture which can take any of the required type.

Continuing with our theater example from Flat Buffers - String chapter, following is the syntax that we need to have to instruct FlatBuffers that we will be creating a union −

theater.fbs

namespace com.tutorialspoint.theater;

union People { Employee, Viewer }

table Theater {
   people: People;
}

table Employee {
   name:string;
   address:string;
   id: int;
}

table Viewer {
   name: string;
   address: string;
}
root_type Theater;

Now our table contains union attribute defined as People of two tables Employee and Viewer. In Theater table, we've defined people of our union type which means which we can store any of the Employee or Viewer in people variable.

Creating Java Classes from fbs File

To use FlatBuffers, we will now have to use flatc binary to create the required classes from this ".fbs" file. Let us see how to do that −

flatc  --java theater.fbs

This will create Theater, People, Employee and Viewer classes in com > tutorialspoint > theater folder in current directory. We're using this class in our application similar to as done in Flat Buffers - Schema chapter.

Using Java Classes created from fbs File

Creating and Writing Union

In order to create a Union, we need to first prepare the offset of required type, for example Viewer and then we can add the viewer along with its type to the flat buffer.

// create offset for Viewer
int viewerName = builder.createString("Mery");
int viewerAddress = builder.createString("Avenue 4");
int viewer = Viewer.createViewer(builder, viewerName, viewerAddress);

//add union tyoe
Theater.addPeopleType(builder, People.Viewer);
// add details to the Theater FlatBuffer
Theater.addPeople(builder, viewer);

Following example code is showing the process of creating a Union.

TheaterWriter.java

package com.tutorialspoint.theater;

import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import java.io.IOException;

import com.google.flatbuffers.FlatBufferBuilder;

public class TheaterWriter {
   public static void main(String[] args) throws FileNotFoundException, IOException {
      // create a flat buffer builder
      // it will be used to create Theater FlatBuffer
      FlatBufferBuilder builder = new FlatBufferBuilder(1024);
      
      // create offset for Viewer
      int viewerName = builder.createString("Mery");
      int viewerAddress = builder.createString("Avenue 4");
      int viewer = Viewer.createViewer(builder, viewerName, viewerAddress);
      
      // create offset for vector
      //int people = Theater.createPeople
      
      // create theater FlatBuffers using startTheater() method
      Theater.startTheater(builder);

      //add union type
      Theater.addPeopleType(builder, People.Viewer);

      // add details to the Theater FlatBuffer
      Theater.addPeople(builder, viewer);
      
      // mark end of data being entered in Greet FlatBuffer
      int theater = Theater.endTheater(builder);

      // finish the builder
      builder.finish(theater);

      // get the bytes to be stored
      byte[] data = builder.sizedByteArray();

      String filename = "theater_flatbuffers_output";
      System.out.println("Saving theater to file: " + filename);
      // write the builder content to the file named theater_flatbuffers_output
      try(FileOutputStream output = new FileOutputStream(filename)){
         output.write(data);
      }
      System.out.println("Saved theater with following data to disk: \n" + theater);
   }
}

Reading Union

In order to read a Union, we can check the type of the union object and then retrieve values accordingly..

// get the saved union type
int unionType = theater.peopleType();

// if union is of type Viewer
if(unionType == People.Viewer) {
   Viewer viewer = (Viewer)theater.people(new Viewer());
   System.out.println("Name: " + viewer.name());
   System.out.println("Address: " + viewer.address());       	 
} 
// if union is of type Employee
else if(unionType == People.Employee) {
   Employee employee = (Employee)theater.people(new Employee());
   System.out.println("Name: " + employee.name());
   System.out.println("Address: " + employee.address());  
   System.out.println("Id: " + employee.id()); 
}

Following example code is showing the process of reading a Union.

TheaterReader.java

package com.tutorialspoint.theater;

import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.nio.ByteBuffer;

public class TheaterReader {
   public static void main(String[] args) throws FileNotFoundException, IOException {

      String filename = "theater_flatbuffers_output";
      System.out.println("Reading from file " + filename);
      try(FileInputStream input = new FileInputStream(filename)) {
         // get the serialized data
         byte[] data = input.readAllBytes();
         ByteBuffer buf = ByteBuffer.wrap(data);
         // read the root object in serialized data
         Theater theater = Theater.getRootAsTheater(buf);
         // print theater values 
         System.out.println("People: ");
         // get the type of union
		 int unionType = theater.peopleType();
         // if union is of Viewer type  
         if(unionType == People.Viewer) {
            Viewer viewer = (Viewer)theater.people(new Viewer());
            System.out.println("Name: " + viewer.name());
            System.out.println("Address: " + viewer.address());       	 
         } else if(unionType == People.Employee) {
            Employee employee = (Employee)theater.people(new Employee());
            System.out.println("Name: " + employee.name());
            System.out.println("Address: " + employee.address());  
            System.out.println("Id: " + employee.id()); 
         }       
      }
   }
}

Compile the project

Now that we have set up the reader and the writer, let us compile the project.

mvn clean install

Serialize the Java Object

Now, post compilation, let us execute the writer first −

> java -cp .\target\flatbuffers-tutorial-1.0.jar com.tutorialspoint.theater.TheaterWriter

Saving theater information to file: theater_flatbuffers_output
Saved theater information with following data to disk:
60

Deserialize the Serialized Object

Now, let us execute the reader to read from the same file −

java -cp .\target\flatbuffers-tutorial-1.0.jar com.tutorialspoint.theater.TheaterReader

Reading from file theater_flatbuffers_output
People:
Name: Mery
Address: Avenue 4

So, as we see, we are able to read the serialized struct by deserializing the binary data to Theater object. In the next chapter Flat Buffers - Nested Tables, we will look at the Nested Tables, a composite type.

Print Page