Class Any

Any contains an arbitrary serialized protocol buffer message along with a URL that describes the type of the serialized message.

Protobuf library provides support to pack/unpack Any values in the form of utility functions or additional generated methods of the Any type.

Example 1: Pack and unpack a message in C++.

Foo foo = ...; Any any; any.PackFrom(foo); ... if (any.UnpackTo(&foo)) { ... }

Example 2: Pack and unpack a message in Java.

Foo foo = ...; Any any = Any.pack(foo); ... if (any.is(Foo.class)) { foo = any.unpack(Foo.class); }

Example 3: Pack and unpack a message in Python.

foo = Foo(...) any = Any() any.Pack(foo) ... if any.Is(Foo.DESCRIPTOR): any.Unpack(foo) ...

Example 4: Pack and unpack a message in Go

foo := &pb.Foo{...} any, err := ptypes.MarshalAny(foo) ... foo := &pb.Foo{} if err := ptypes.UnmarshalAny(any, foo); err != nil { ... }

The pack methods provided by protobuf library will by default use 'type.googleapis.com/full.type.name' as the type URL and the unpack methods only use the fully qualified type name after the last '/' in the type URL, for example "foo.bar.com/x/y.z" will yield type name "y.z".

JSON

The JSON representation of an Any value uses the regular representation of the deserialized, embedded message, with an additional field @type which contains the type URL. Example:

package google.profile; message Person { string first_name = 1; string last_name = 2; }

{ &quot;@type&quot;: "type.googleapis.com/google.profile.Person", "firstName": <string>, "lastName": <string> }

If the embedded message type is well-known and has a custom JSON representation, that representation will be embedded adding a field value which holds the custom JSON in addition to the @type field. Example (for message [google.protobuf.Duration][]):

{ &quot;@type&quot;: "type.googleapis.com/google.protobuf.Duration", "value": "1.212s" }

Inheritance
System.Object
Any
Implements
System.IEquatable<Any>
Inherited Members
System.Object.Equals(System.Object, System.Object)
System.Object.ReferenceEquals(System.Object, System.Object)
System.Object.GetType()
System.Object.MemberwiseClone()
Namespace: Google.Protobuf.WellKnownTypes
Assembly: Google.Protobuf.dll
Syntax
public sealed class Any : IMessage<Any>, IMessage, IEquatable<Any>, IDeepCloneable<Any>

Constructors

Any()

Declaration
public Any()

Any(Any)

Declaration
public Any(Any other)
Parameters
Type Name Description
Any other

Fields

TypeUrlFieldNumber

Field number for the "type_url" field.

Declaration
public const int TypeUrlFieldNumber = 1
Field Value
Type Description
System.Int32

ValueFieldNumber

Field number for the "value" field.

Declaration
public const int ValueFieldNumber = 2
Field Value
Type Description
System.Int32

Properties

Descriptor

Declaration
public static MessageDescriptor Descriptor { get; }
Property Value
Type Description
MessageDescriptor

Parser

Declaration
public static MessageParser<Any> Parser { get; }
Property Value
Type Description
MessageParser<Any>

TypeUrl

A URL/resource name that uniquely identifies the type of the serialized protocol buffer message. This string must contain at least one "/" character. The last segment of the URL's path must represent the fully qualified name of the type (as in path/google.protobuf.Duration). The name should be in a canonical form (e.g., leading "." is not accepted).

In practice, teams usually precompile into the binary all types that they expect it to use in the context of Any. However, for URLs which use the scheme http, https, or no scheme, one can optionally set up a type server that maps type URLs to message definitions as follows:

  • If no scheme is provided, https is assumed.
  • An HTTP GET on the URL must yield a [google.protobuf.Type][] value in binary format, or produce an error.
  • Applications are allowed to cache lookup results based on the URL, or have them precompiled into a binary to avoid any lookup. Therefore, binary compatibility needs to be preserved on changes to types. (Use versioned type names to manage breaking changes.)

Note: this functionality is not currently available in the official protobuf release, and it is not used for type URLs beginning with type.googleapis.com.

Schemes other than http, https (or the empty scheme) might be used with implementation specific semantics.

Declaration
public string TypeUrl { get; set; }
Property Value
Type Description
System.String

Value

Must be a valid serialized protocol buffer of the above specified type.

Declaration
public ByteString Value { get; set; }
Property Value
Type Description
ByteString

Methods

CalculateSize()

Declaration
public int CalculateSize()
Returns
Type Description
System.Int32
Implements

Clone()

Declaration
public Any Clone()
Returns
Type Description
Any
Implements

Equals(Any)

Declaration
public bool Equals(Any other)
Parameters
Type Name Description
Any other
Returns
Type Description
System.Boolean
Implements
System.IEquatable<T>.Equals(T)

Equals(Object)

Declaration
public override bool Equals(object other)
Parameters
Type Name Description
System.Object other
Returns
Type Description
System.Boolean
Overrides
System.Object.Equals(System.Object)

GetHashCode()

Declaration
public override int GetHashCode()
Returns
Type Description
System.Int32
Overrides
System.Object.GetHashCode()

GetTypeName(String)

Retrieves the type name for a type URL, matching the FullName of the packed message type.

Declaration
public static string GetTypeName(string typeUrl)
Parameters
Type Name Description
System.String typeUrl

The URL to extract the type name from
Returns
Type Description
System.String

The type name
Remarks

This is always just the last part of the URL, after the final slash. No validation of anything before the trailing slash is performed. If the type URL does not include a slash, an empty string is returned rather than an exception being thrown; this won't match any types, and the calling code is probably in a better position to give a meaningful error.

There is no handling of fragments or queries at the moment.

Is(MessageDescriptor)

Returns a bool indictating whether this Any message is of the target message type

Declaration
public bool Is(MessageDescriptor descriptor)
Parameters
Type Name Description
MessageDescriptor descriptor

The descriptor of the message type
Returns
Type Description
System.Boolean

true if the type name matches the descriptor's full name or false otherwise

MergeFrom(CodedInputStream)

Declaration
public void MergeFrom(CodedInputStream input)
Parameters
Type Name Description
CodedInputStream input
Implements

MergeFrom(Any)

Declaration
public void MergeFrom(Any other)
Parameters
Type Name Description
Any other
Implements

Pack(IMessage)

Packs the specified message into an Any message using a type URL prefix of "type.googleapis.com".

Declaration
public static Any Pack(IMessage message)
Parameters
Type Name Description
IMessage message

The message to pack.
Returns
Type Description
Any

An Any message with the content and type URL of message.

Pack(IMessage, String)

Packs the specified message into an Any message using the specified type URL prefix.

Declaration
public static Any Pack(IMessage message, string typeUrlPrefix)
Parameters
Type Name Description
IMessage message

The message to pack.
System.String typeUrlPrefix

The prefix for the type URL.
Returns
Type Description
Any

An Any message with the content and type URL of message.

ToString()

Declaration
public override string ToString()
Returns
Type Description
System.String
Overrides
System.Object.ToString()

TryUnpack<T>(out T)

Attempts to unpack the content of this Any message into the target message type, if it matches the type URL within this Any message.

Declaration
public bool TryUnpack<T>(out T result)
    where T : IMessage, new()
Parameters
Type Name Description
T result
Returns
Type Description
System.Boolean

true if the message was successfully unpacked; false if the type name didn't match
Type Parameters
Name Description
T

The type of message to attempt to unpack the content into.

Unpack<T>()

Unpacks the content of this Any message into the target message type, which must match the type URL within this Any message.

Declaration
public T Unpack<T>()
    where T : IMessage, new()
Returns
Type Description
T

The unpacked message.
Type Parameters
Name Description
T

The type of message to unpack the content into.
Exceptions
Type Condition
InvalidProtocolBufferException

The target message type doesn't match the type URL in this message

WriteTo(CodedOutputStream)

Declaration
public void WriteTo(CodedOutputStream output)
Parameters
Type Name Description
CodedOutputStream output
Implements

Explicit Interface Implementations

IMessage.Descriptor

Declaration
MessageDescriptor IMessage.Descriptor { get; }
Returns
Type Description
MessageDescriptor
Implements

Extension Methods