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Google Open Sources Its Data Interchange Format

Posted by kdawson on from the it's-fast-that's-why dept.

A number of readers have noted Google's open sourcing of their internal data interchange format, called Protocol Buffers (here's the code and the doc). Google elevator statement for Protocol Buffers is "a language-neutral, platform-neutral, extensible way of serializing structured data for use in communications protocols, data storage, and more." It's the way data is formatted to move around inside of Google. Betanews spotlights some of Protocol Buffers' contrasts with XML and IDL, with which it is most comparable. Google's blogger claims, "And, yes, it is very fast — at least an order of magnitude faster than XML."

3 of 332 comments (clear)

  1. compare to thrift ( from facebook) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    both really from the same design sheet, but thrift has been opensource'd for over a year, and has many more language bindings. its been in use in several opensource projects (thrudb comes to mind), and has much more extant articles/documentation.

    http://developers.facebook.com/thrift/

  2. Re:No PERL API ??!!?? by yknott · · Score: 5, Informative

    According to Brad Fitzpatrick's(of LiveJounral fame) blog, He's working on Perl support.

  3. Re:WTF am I missing by jandrese · · Score: 5, Informative

    They open sourced the compiler (for C++, Java, and Python) that lets you actually use the data interchange format. If you follow the link you can download the code and start using it today. The code is open source.

    --

    I read the internet for the articles.