protobuf

google. protobuf

Source:

Type Definitions

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;
}

{
  "@type": "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):

{
  "@type": "type.googleapis.com/google.protobuf.Duration",
  "value": "1.212s"
}
Properties:
Name Type Description
typeUrl string

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.
value Buffer

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

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;
}

{
  "@type": "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):

{
  "@type": "type.googleapis.com/google.protobuf.Duration",
  "value": "1.212s"
}
Properties:
Name Type Description
typeUrl string

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.
value Buffer

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

Duration

A Duration represents a signed, fixed-length span of time represented as a count of seconds and fractions of seconds at nanosecond resolution. It is independent of any calendar and concepts like "day" or "month". It is related to Timestamp in that the difference between two Timestamp values is a Duration and it can be added or subtracted from a Timestamp. Range is approximately +-10,000 years.

Examples

Example 1: Compute Duration from two Timestamps in pseudo code.

Timestamp start = ...;
Timestamp end = ...;
Duration duration = ...;

duration.seconds = end.seconds - start.seconds;
duration.nanos = end.nanos - start.nanos;

if (duration.seconds < 0 && duration.nanos > 0) {
  duration.seconds += 1;
  duration.nanos -= 1000000000;
} else if (durations.seconds > 0 && duration.nanos < 0) {
  duration.seconds -= 1;
  duration.nanos += 1000000000;
}

Example 2: Compute Timestamp from Timestamp + Duration in pseudo code.

Timestamp start = ...;
Duration duration = ...;
Timestamp end = ...;

end.seconds = start.seconds + duration.seconds;
end.nanos = start.nanos + duration.nanos;

if (end.nanos < 0) {
  end.seconds -= 1;
  end.nanos += 1000000000;
} else if (end.nanos >= 1000000000) {
  end.seconds += 1;
  end.nanos -= 1000000000;
}

Example 3: Compute Duration from datetime.timedelta in Python.

td = datetime.timedelta(days=3, minutes=10)
duration = Duration()
duration.FromTimedelta(td)

JSON Mapping

In JSON format, the Duration type is encoded as a string rather than an object, where the string ends in the suffix "s" (indicating seconds) and is preceded by the number of seconds, with nanoseconds expressed as fractional seconds. For example, 3 seconds with 0 nanoseconds should be encoded in JSON format as "3s", while 3 seconds and 1 nanosecond should be expressed in JSON format as "3.000000001s", and 3 seconds and 1 microsecond should be expressed in JSON format as "3.000001s".

Properties:
Name Type Description
seconds number

Signed seconds of the span of time. Must be from -315,576,000,000 to +315,576,000,000 inclusive. Note: these bounds are computed from: 60 sec/min * 60 min/hr * 24 hr/day * 365.25 days/year * 10000 years
nanos number

Signed fractions of a second at nanosecond resolution of the span of time. Durations less than one second are represented with a 0 seconds field and a positive or negative nanos field. For durations of one second or more, a non-zero value for the nanos field must be of the same sign as the seconds field. Must be from -999,999,999 to +999,999,999 inclusive.
Source:
See:

Duration

A Duration represents a signed, fixed-length span of time represented as a count of seconds and fractions of seconds at nanosecond resolution. It is independent of any calendar and concepts like "day" or "month". It is related to Timestamp in that the difference between two Timestamp values is a Duration and it can be added or subtracted from a Timestamp. Range is approximately +-10,000 years.

Examples

Example 1: Compute Duration from two Timestamps in pseudo code.

Timestamp start = ...;
Timestamp end = ...;
Duration duration = ...;

duration.seconds = end.seconds - start.seconds;
duration.nanos = end.nanos - start.nanos;

if (duration.seconds < 0 && duration.nanos > 0) {
  duration.seconds += 1;
  duration.nanos -= 1000000000;
} else if (durations.seconds > 0 && duration.nanos < 0) {
  duration.seconds -= 1;
  duration.nanos += 1000000000;
}

Example 2: Compute Timestamp from Timestamp + Duration in pseudo code.

Timestamp start = ...;
Duration duration = ...;
Timestamp end = ...;

end.seconds = start.seconds + duration.seconds;
end.nanos = start.nanos + duration.nanos;

if (end.nanos < 0) {
  end.seconds -= 1;
  end.nanos += 1000000000;
} else if (end.nanos >= 1000000000) {
  end.seconds += 1;
  end.nanos -= 1000000000;
}

Example 3: Compute Duration from datetime.timedelta in Python.

td = datetime.timedelta(days=3, minutes=10)
duration = Duration()
duration.FromTimedelta(td)

JSON Mapping

In JSON format, the Duration type is encoded as a string rather than an object, where the string ends in the suffix "s" (indicating seconds) and is preceded by the number of seconds, with nanoseconds expressed as fractional seconds. For example, 3 seconds with 0 nanoseconds should be encoded in JSON format as "3s", while 3 seconds and 1 nanosecond should be expressed in JSON format as "3.000000001s", and 3 seconds and 1 microsecond should be expressed in JSON format as "3.000001s".

Properties:
Name Type Description
seconds number

Signed seconds of the span of time. Must be from -315,576,000,000 to +315,576,000,000 inclusive. Note: these bounds are computed from: 60 sec/min * 60 min/hr * 24 hr/day * 365.25 days/year * 10000 years
nanos number

Signed fractions of a second at nanosecond resolution of the span of time. Durations less than one second are represented with a 0 seconds field and a positive or negative nanos field. For durations of one second or more, a non-zero value for the nanos field must be of the same sign as the seconds field. Must be from -999,999,999 to +999,999,999 inclusive.
Source:
See: