View Source Protobuf.JSON (protobuf v0.12.0)

JSON encoding and decoding utilities for Protobuf structs.

It follows Google's specs and reference implementation. Some features such as well-known types are not fully supported yet.

Proto3 is supported as per the specification. Proto2 is supported in practice, but some of its features might not work correctly, such as extensions.

types

Types

ProtobufJSONSupported
booltrue/falseYes
int32, fixed32, uint32NumberYes
int64, fixed64, uint64StringYes
float, doubleNumberYes
bytesBase64 stringYes
stringStringYes
messageObject ({…})Yes
enumStringYes
map<K,V>Object ({…})Yes
repeated VArray of [v, …]Yes
AnyObject ({…})Yes
TimestampRFC3339 datetimeYes
DurationString (seconds.fraction)Yes
StructObject ({…})Yes
Wrapper typesVarious typesYes
FieldMaskStringYes
ListValueArrayYes
ValueAny JSON valueYes
NullValuenullYes
EmptyObject ({…})Yes

usage

Usage

Protobuf.JSON requires a JSON library to work, so first make sure you have :jason added to your dependencies:

defp deps do
  [
    {:jason, "~> 1.2"},
    # ...
  ]
end

With encode/1 you can turn any Protobuf message struct into a JSON string:

iex> message = %Car{color: :RED, top_speed: 125.3}
iex> Protobuf.JSON.encode(message)
{:ok, "{\"color\":\"RED\",\"topSpeed\":125.3}"}

And go the other way around with decode/1:

iex> json = ~S|{"color":"RED","topSpeed":125.3}|
iex> Protobuf.JSON.decode(json, Car)
{:ok, %Car{color: :RED, top_speed: 125.3}}

JSON keys are encoded as camelCase strings by default, specified by the json_name field option. So make sure to recompile the .proto files in your project before working with JSON encoding, the compiler will generate all the required json_name options. You can set your own json_name for a particular field too:

message GeoCoordinate {
  double latitude = 1 [ json_name = "lat" ];
  double longitude = 2 [ json_name = "long" ];
}

known-issues-and-limitations

Known Issues and Limitations

Currently, the protoc compiler won't check for field name collisions. This library won't check that either. Make sure your field names will be unique when serialized to JSON. For instance, this message definition will not encode correctly since it will emit just one of the two fields and the problem might go unnoticed:

message CollidingFields {
  int32 f1 = 1 [json_name = "sameName"];
  float f2 = 2 [json_name = "sameName"];
}

According to the specification, when duplicated JSON keys are found in maps, the library should raise a decoding error. It currently ignores duplicates and keeps the last occurrence.

google-protobuf-any

google.protobuf.Any

The google.protobuf.Any type is supported. It can be used to encode and decode arbitrary messages. When decoding, the "type URL" is used to determine the message type to decode to. The type URL is expected to be in the format of type.googleapis.com/<package>.<message>. For example, the type URL for the google.protobuf.Duration message would be type.googleapis.com/google.protobuf.Duration. To determine the Elixir module from the type URL, the package and message names are split on . and transformed into a module name. In the previous example, we'd end up with Google.Protobuf.Duration. Due to arbitrary atom construction, we're forced to use Module.safe_concat/1 to construct the module name. This means that the module must exist before decoding. If the module doesn't exist, decoding will raise an error.

Link to this section Summary

Functions

Decodes a JSON iodata into a module Protobuf struct.

Decodes a JSON iodata into a module Protobuf struct.

Generates a JSON representation of the given protobuf struct.

Generates a JSON representation of the given protobuf struct.

Decodes a json_data map into a module Protobuf struct.

Generates a JSON-encodable map for the given Protobuf struct.

Link to this section Types

@type encode_opt() ::
  {:use_proto_names, boolean()}
  | {:use_enum_numbers, boolean()}
  | {:emit_unpopulated, boolean()}
@type json_data() :: %{optional(binary()) => any()}

Link to this section Functions

@spec decode(iodata(), module()) ::
  {:ok, struct()} | {:error, Protobuf.JSON.DecodeError.t() | Exception.t()}

Decodes a JSON iodata into a module Protobuf struct.

examples

Examples

Given this Protobuf message:

syntax = "proto3";

message Car {
  enum Color {
    GREEN = 0;
    RED = 1;
  }

  Color color = 1;
  float top_speed = 2;
}

You can build its structs from JSON like this:

iex> Protobuf.JSON.decode("{}", Car)
{:ok, %Car{color: :GREEN, top_speed: 0.0}}

iex> ~S|{"color":"RED"}| |> Protobuf.JSON.decode(Car)
{:ok, %Car{color: :RED, top_speed: 0.0}}

iex> ~S|{"color":"GREEN","topSpeed":80.0}| |> Protobuf.JSON.decode(Car)
{:ok, %Car{color: :GREEN, top_speed: 80.0}}
@spec decode!(iodata(), module()) :: struct() | no_return()

Decodes a JSON iodata into a module Protobuf struct.

Similar to decode!/2 except it will unwrap the error tuple and raise in case of errors.

examples

Examples

iex> Protobuf.JSON.decode!("{}", Car)
%Car{color: :GREEN, top_speed: 0.0}

iex> ~S|{"color":"RED"}| |> Protobuf.JSON.decode!(Car)
%Car{color: :RED, top_speed: 0.0}

iex> ~S|{"color":"GREEN","topSpeed":80.0}| |> Protobuf.JSON.decode!(Car)
%Car{color: :GREEN, top_speed: 80.0}
Link to this function

encode(struct, opts \\ [])

View Source
@spec encode(
  struct(),
  [encode_opt()]
) :: {:ok, String.t()} | {:error, Protobuf.JSON.EncodeError.t() | Exception.t()}

Generates a JSON representation of the given protobuf struct.

options

Options

  • :use_proto_names - use original field name instead of the camelCase json_name for JSON keys. Defaults to false.
  • :use_enum_numbers - encode enum field values as numbers instead of their labels. Defaults to false.
  • :emit_unpopulated - emit all fields, even when they are blank, empty, or set to their default value. Defaults to false.

examples

Examples

Suppose that this is you Protobuf message:

syntax = "proto3";

message Car {
  enum Color {
    GREEN = 0;
    RED = 1;
  }

  Color color = 1;
  float top_speed = 2;
}

Encoding is as simple as:

iex> Protobuf.JSON.encode(%Car{color: :RED, top_speed: 125.3})
{:ok, ~S|{"color":"RED","topSpeed":125.3}|}

iex> Protobuf.JSON.encode(%Car{color: :GREEN})
{:ok, "{}"}

iex> Protobuf.JSON.encode(%Car{}, emit_unpopulated: true)
{:ok, ~S|{"color":"GREEN","topSpeed":0.0}|}
Link to this function

encode!(struct, opts \\ [])

View Source
@spec encode!(
  struct(),
  [encode_opt()]
) :: String.t() | no_return()

Generates a JSON representation of the given protobuf struct.

Similar to encode/2 except it will unwrap the error tuple and raise in case of errors.

examples

Examples

iex> Protobuf.JSON.encode!(%Car{top_speed: 80.0})
~S|{"topSpeed":80.0}|
Link to this function

from_decoded(json_data, module)

View Source
@spec from_decoded(json_data(), module()) ::
  {:ok, struct()} | {:error, Protobuf.JSON.DecodeError.t()}

Decodes a json_data map into a module Protobuf struct.

Similar to decode/2 except it takes a JSON map representation of the data. This is especially useful if you want to use custom JSON encoding or a custom JSON library.

examples

Examples

iex> Protobuf.JSON.from_decoded(%{}, Car)
{:ok, %Car{color: :GREEN, top_speed: 0.0}}

iex> Protobuf.JSON.from_decoded(%{"color" => "RED"}, Car)
{:ok, %Car{color: :RED, top_speed: 0.0}}

iex> Protobuf.JSON.from_decoded(%{"color" => "GREEN","topSpeed" => 80.0}, Car)
{:ok, %Car{color: :GREEN, top_speed: 80.0}}
Link to this function

to_encodable(struct, opts \\ [])

View Source
@spec to_encodable(
  struct(),
  [encode_opt()]
) :: {:ok, json_data()} | {:error, Protobuf.JSON.EncodeError.t()}

Generates a JSON-encodable map for the given Protobuf struct.

Similar to encode/2 except it will return an intermediate map representation. This is especially useful if you want to use custom JSON encoding or a custom JSON library.

Supports the same options as encode/2.

examples

Examples

iex> Protobuf.JSON.to_encodable(%Car{color: :RED, top_speed: 125.3})
{:ok, %{"color" => :RED, "topSpeed" => 125.3}}

iex> Protobuf.JSON.to_encodable(%Car{color: :GREEN})
{:ok, %{}}

iex> Protobuf.JSON.to_encodable(%Car{}, emit_unpopulated: true)
{:ok, %{"color" => :GREEN, "topSpeed" => 0.0}}