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https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/nanopb

Protocol Buffers with small code size
https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/nanopb

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Protocol Buffers with small code size

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README 

        
Nanopb - Protocol Buffers for Embedded Systems

==============================================



![Latest change](https://github.com/nanopb/nanopb/actions/workflows/trigger_on_code_change.yml/badge.svg)

![Weekly build](https://github.com/nanopb/nanopb/actions/workflows/trigger_on_schedule.yml/badge.svg)



Nanopb is a small code-size Protocol Buffers implementation in ansi C. It is

especially suitable for use in microcontrollers, but fits any memory

restricted system.



* **Homepage:** https://jpa.kapsi.fi/nanopb/

* **Git repository:** https://github.com/nanopb/nanopb/

* **Documentation:** https://jpa.kapsi.fi/nanopb/docs/

* **Forum:** https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/nanopb

* **Stable version downloads:** https://jpa.kapsi.fi/nanopb/download/

* **Pre-release binary packages:** https://github.com/nanopb/nanopb/actions/workflows/binary_packages.yml



Using the nanopb library

------------------------

To use the nanopb library, you need to do two things:



1. Compile your .proto files for nanopb, using `protoc`.

2. Include *pb_encode.c*, *pb_decode.c* and *pb_common.c* in your project.



The easiest way to get started is to study the project in "examples/simple".

It contains a Makefile, which should work directly under most Linux systems.

However, for any other kind of build system, see the manual steps in

README.txt in that folder.



Generating the headers

----------------------

Protocol Buffers messages are defined in a `.proto` file, which follows a standard

format that is compatible with all Protocol Buffers libraries. To use it with nanopb,

you need to generate `.pb.c` and `.pb.h` files from it:



    python generator/nanopb_generator.py myprotocol.proto  # For source checkout

    generator-bin/nanopb_generator myprotocol.proto        # For binary package



(Note: For instructions for nanopb-0.3.9.x and older, see the documentation

of that particular version [here](https://github.com/nanopb/nanopb/blob/maintenance_0.3/README.md))



The binary packages for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X should contain all necessary

dependencies, including Python, python-protobuf library and protoc. If you are

using a git checkout or a plain source distribution, you will need to install

Python separately. Once you have Python, you can install the other dependencies

with `pip install --upgrade protobuf grpcio-tools`.



You can further customize the header generation by creating an `.options` file.

See [documentation](https://jpa.kapsi.fi/nanopb/docs/concepts.html#modifying-generator-behaviour) for details.



Running the tests

-----------------

If you want to perform further development of the nanopb core, or to verify

its functionality using your compiler and platform, you'll want to run the

test suite. The build rules for the test suite are implemented using Scons,

so you need to have that installed (ex: `sudo apt install scons` or `pip install scons`).

To run the tests:



    cd tests

    scons



This will show the progress of various test cases. If the output does not

end in an error, the test cases were successful.



Note: Mac OS X by default aliases 'clang' as 'gcc', while not actually

supporting the same command line options as gcc does. To run tests on

Mac OS X, use: `scons CC=clang CXX=clang++`. Same way can be used to run

tests with different compilers on any platform.



For embedded platforms, there is currently support for running the tests

on STM32 discovery board and [simavr](https://github.com/buserror/simavr)

AVR simulator. Use `scons PLATFORM=STM32` and `scons PLATFORM=AVR` to run

these tests.



Build systems and integration

-----------------------------

Nanopb C code itself is designed to be portable and easy to build

on any platform. Often the bigger hurdle is running the generator which

takes in the `.proto` files and outputs `.pb.c` definitions.



There exist build rules for several systems:



* **Makefiles**: `extra/nanopb.mk`, see `examples/simple`

* **CMake**: `extra/FindNanopb.cmake`, see `examples/cmake`

* **SCons**: `tests/site_scons` (generator only)

* **Bazel**: `BUILD.bazel` in source root

* **Conan**: `conanfile.py` in source root

* **PlatformIO**: https://platformio.org/lib/show/431/Nanopb

* **PyPI/pip**: https://pypi.org/project/nanopb/

* **vcpkg**: https://vcpkg.info/port/nanopb



And also integration to platform interfaces:



* **Arduino**: http://platformio.org/lib/show/1385/nanopb-arduino

* **Zephyr**: https://docs.zephyrproject.org/latest/services/serialization/nanopb.html