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 Microsoft 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