Messages
========
The fundamental building block in protocol buffers are `messages`_.
Messages are essentially permissive, strongly-typed structs (dictionaries),
which have zero or more fields that may themselves contain primitives or
other messages.
.. code-block:: protobuf
syntax = "proto3";
message Song {
Composer composer = 1;
string title = 2;
string lyrics = 3;
int32 year = 4;
}
message Composer {
string given_name = 1;
string family_name = 2;
}
The most common use case for protocol buffers is to write a ``.proto`` file,
and then use the protocol buffer compiler to generate code for it.
Declaring messages
------------------
However, it is possible to declare messages directly.
This is the equivalent message declaration in Python, using this library:
.. code-block:: python
import proto
class Composer(proto.Message):
given_name = proto.Field(proto.STRING, number=1)
family_name = proto.Field(proto.STRING, number=2)
class Song(proto.Message):
composer = proto.Field(Composer, number=1)
title = proto.Field(proto.STRING, number=2)
lyrics = proto.Field(proto.STRING, number=3)
year = proto.Field(proto.INT32, number=4)
A few things to note:
* This library only handles proto3.
* The ``number`` is really a field ID. It is *not* a value of any kind.
* All fields are optional (as is always the case in proto3).
The only general way to determine whether a field was explicitly set to its
falsy value or not set all is to mark it ``optional``.
* Because all fields are optional, it is the responsibility of application logic
to determine whether a necessary field has been set.
* You can optionally define a `__protobuf__` attribute in your module which will be used
to differentiate messages which have the same name but exist in different modules.
.. code-block:: python
# file a.py
import proto
__protobuf__ = proto.module(package="a")
class A(proto.Message):
name = proto.Field(proto.STRING, number=1)
# file b.py
import proto
__protobuf__ = proto.module(package="b")
class A(proto.Message):
name = proto.Field(proto.STRING, number=1)
# file main.py
import a
import b
_a = a.A(name="Hello, A!")
_b = b.A(name="Hello, B!")
.. _messages: https://developers.google.com/protocol-buffers/docs/proto3#simple
Messages are fundamentally made up of :doc:`fields`. Most messages are nothing
more than a name and their set of fields.
Usage
-----
Instantiate messages using either keyword arguments or a :class:`dict`
(and mix and matching is acceptable):
.. code-block:: python
>>> song = Song(
... composer={'given_name': 'Johann', 'family_name': 'Pachelbel'},
... title='Canon in D',
... year=1680,
... )
>>> song.composer.family_name
'Pachelbel'
>>> song.title
'Canon in D'
Assigning to Fields
-------------------
One of the goals of proto-plus is to make protobufs feel as much like regular python
objects as possible. It is possible to update a message's field by assigning to it,
just as if it were a regular python object.
.. code-block:: python
song = Song()
song.composer = Composer(given_name="Johann", family_name="Bach")
# Can also assign from a dictionary as a convenience.
song.composer = {"given_name": "Claude", "family_name": "Debussy"}
# Repeated fields can also be assigned
class Album(proto.Message):
songs = proto.RepeatedField(Song, number=1)
a = Album()
songs = [Song(title="Canon in D"), Song(title="Little Fugue")]
a.songs = songs
.. note::
Assigning to a proto-plus message field works by making copies, not by updating references.
This is necessary because of memory layout requirements of protocol buffers.
These memory constraints are maintained by the protocol buffers runtime.
This behavior can be surprising under certain circumstances, e.g. trying to save
an alias to a nested field.
:class:`proto.Message` defines a helper message, :meth:`~.Message.copy_from` to
help make the distinction clear when reading code.
The semantics of :meth:`~.Message.copy_from` are identical to the field assignment behavior described above.
.. code-block:: python
composer = Composer(given_name="Johann", family_name="Bach")
song = Song(title="Tocatta and Fugue in D Minor", composer=composer)
composer.given_name = "Wilhelm"
# 'composer' is NOT a reference to song.composer
assert song.composer.given_name == "Johann"
# We CAN update the song's composer by assignment.
song.composer = composer
composer.given_name = "Carl"
# 'composer' is STILL not a reference to song.composer.
assert song.composer.given_name == "Wilhelm"
# It does work in reverse, though,
# if we want a reference we can access then update.
composer = song.composer
composer.given_name = "Gottfried"
assert song.composer.given_name == "Gottfried"
# We can use 'copy_from' if we're concerned that the code
# implies that assignment involves references.
composer = Composer(given_name="Elisabeth", family_name="Bach")
# We could also do Message.copy_from(song.composer, composer) instead.
Composer.copy_from(song.composer, composer)
assert song.composer.given_name == "Elisabeth"
Enums
-----
Enums are also supported:
.. code-block:: python
import proto
class Genre(proto.Enum):
GENRE_UNSPECIFIED = 0
CLASSICAL = 1
JAZZ = 2
ROCK = 3
class Composer(proto.Message):
given_name = proto.Field(proto.STRING, number=1)
family_name = proto.Field(proto.STRING, number=2)
class Song(proto.Message):
composer = proto.Field(Composer, number=1)
title = proto.Field(proto.STRING, number=2)
lyrics = proto.Field(proto.STRING, number=3)
year = proto.Field(proto.INT32, number=4)
genre = proto.Field(Genre, number=5)
All enums **must** begin with a ``0`` value, which is always the default in
proto3 (and, as above, indistuiguishable from unset).
Enums utilize Python :class:`enum.IntEnum` under the hood:
.. code-block:: python
>>> song = Song(
... composer={'given_name': 'Johann', 'family_name': 'Pachelbel'},
... title='Canon in D',
... year=1680,
... genre=Genre.CLASSICAL,
... )
>>> song.genre
<Genre.CLASSICAL: 1>
>>> song.genre.name
'CLASSICAL'
>>> song.genre.value
1
Additionally, it is possible to provide strings or plain integers:
.. code-block:: python
>>> song.genre = 2
>>> song.genre
<Genre.JAZZ: 2>
>>> song.genre = 'CLASSICAL'
<Genre.CLASSICAL: 1>
Serialization
-------------
Serialization and deserialization is available through the
:meth:`~.Message.serialize` and :meth:`~.Message.deserialize` class methods.
The :meth:`~.Message.serialize` method is available on the message *classes*
only, and accepts an instance:
.. code-block:: python
serialized_song = Song.serialize(song)
The :meth:`~.Message.deserialize` method accepts a :class:`bytes`, and
returns an instance of the message:
.. code-block:: python
song = Song.deserialize(serialized_song)
JSON serialization and deserialization are also available from message *classes*
via the :meth:`~.Message.to_json` and :meth:`~.Message.from_json` methods.
.. code-block:: python
json = Song.to_json(song)
new_song = Song.from_json(json)
Similarly, messages can be converted into dictionaries via the
:meth:`~.Message.to_dict` helper method.
There is no :meth:`~.Message.from_dict` method because the Message constructor
already allows construction from mapping types.
.. code-block:: python
song_dict = Song.to_dict(song)
new_song = Song(song_dict)
.. note::
Although Python's pickling protocol has known issues when used with
untrusted collaborators, some frameworks do use it for communication
between trusted hosts. To support such frameworks, protobuf messages
**can** be pickled and unpickled, although the preferred mechanism for
serializing proto messages is :meth:`~.Message.serialize`.
Multiprocessing example:
.. code-block:: python
import proto
from multiprocessing import Pool
class Composer(proto.Message):
name = proto.Field(proto.STRING, number=1)
genre = proto.Field(proto.STRING, number=2)
composers = [Composer(name=n) for n in ["Bach", "Mozart", "Brahms", "Strauss"]]
with multiprocessing.Pool(2) as p:
def add_genre(comp_bytes):
composer = Composer.deserialize(comp_bytes)
composer.genre = "classical"
return Composer.serialize(composer)
updated_composers = [
Composer.deserialize(comp_bytes)
for comp_bytes in p.map(add_genre, (Composer.serialize(comp) for comp in composers))
]