= Ruby Protocol Buffers

Protocol Buffers are a way of encoding structured data in an efficient yet
extensible format. Google uses Protocol Buffers for almost all of its internal
RPC protocols and file formats.

Ruby Protocol Buffers has two components: a compiler to turn .proto definitions
into Ruby modules (extension .pb.rb), and a runtime to use protocol buffers
defined by these modules. The compiler relies on Google's C++ based protoc
compiler for much of the heavy lifting -- this has huge advantages in ensuring
correctness.

Simple usage example:

  $ echo "package Test; message MyMessage { optional string myField = 1; }" > test.proto
  $ ruby-protoc test.proto
  $ irb -rtest.pb
  > msg = Test::MyMessage.new(:myField => 'zomgkittenz')
  => #<Test::MyMessage myField="zomgkittenz">
  > Test::MyMessage.parse(StringIO.new(msg.to_s)) == msg
  => true

== Authors

Brian Palmer ([email protected])

== Installation

You'll need protoc version >= 2.2 (the Google Protocol Buffer compiler)
installed in the environment where you will be compiling protocol buffers. This
is only needed for compiling, you don't need it installed to use the generated
.pb.rb files.

If you use RubyGems, you can install via:

  $ sudo gem install ruby-protocol-buffers

== Source

The source is available on GitHub somewhere. Once I know where, I'll update the
README :)

== License

See the LICENSE file included with the distribution for licensing and
copyright details.