Protocol Buffers - string

Overview

Protocol Buffers strings translate to a string in the languages that we use, for example, Java, Python, etc. Continuing on the theater example, following is the syntax that we need to have to instruct Protocol Buffers that we will be creating a string −

theater.proto

syntax = "proto3";
package theater;
option java_package = "com.tutorialspoint.theater";

message Theater {
   string name = 1;
   string address = 2;
}

Now our class/message contains two string attributes. Each of them also has a position which is what Protocol Buffers uses while serialization and deserialization. Each attribute of a member needs to have a unique position attribute.

Creating Java Classes from Proto File

To use Protocol Buffers, we will now have to use protoc binary to create the required classes from this ".proto" file. Let us see how to do that −

protoc  --java_out=. theater.proto

This will create a TheaterOuterClass.java class in com > tutorialspoint > theater folder in current directory. We're using this class in our application similar to as done in Protocol Buffers - Basic App chapter.

Using Java Classes created from Proto File

First let's create a writer to write the theater information −

TheaterWriter.java

package com.tutorialspoint.theater;

import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import com.tutorialspoint.theater.TheaterOuterClass.Theater;

public class TheaterWriter{
   public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
      Theater theater = Theater.newBuilder()
         .setName("Silver Screener")
         .setAddress("212, Maple Street, LA, California")
         .build();
		
      String filename = "theater_protobuf_output";
      System.out.println("Saving theater information to file: " + filename);
		
      try(FileOutputStream output = new FileOutputStream(filename)){
         theater.writeTo(output);
      }
      System.out.println("Saved theater information with following data to disk: \n" + theater);
   }
}	

Next, we will have a reader to read the theater information −

TheaterReader.java

package com.tutorialspoint.theater;

import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import com.tutorialspoint.greeting.Greeting.Greet;
import com.tutorialspoint.theater.TheaterOuterClass.Theater;
import com.tutorialspoint.theater.TheaterOuterClass.Theater.Builder;

public class TheaterReader{
   public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
      Builder theaterBuilder = Theater.newBuilder();

      String filename = "theater_protobuf_output";
      System.out.println("Reading from file " + filename);
        
      try(FileInputStream input = new FileInputStream(filename)) {
         Theater theater = theaterBuilder.mergeFrom(input).build();
         System.out.println(theater);
      }
   }
}

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\protobuf-tutorial-1.0.jar com.tutorialspoint.theater.TheaterWriter

Saving theater information to file: theater_protobuf_output
Saved theater information with following data to disk:
name: "Silver Screener"
address: "212, Maple Street, LA, California"

Deserialize the Serialized Object

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

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

Reading from file theater_protobuf_output
name: "Silver Screener"
address: "212, Maple Street, LA, California"

So, as we see, we are able to read the serialized strings by deserializing the binary data to the Theater object. Let us now look at numbers in the next chapter Protocol Buffers - Numbers .