Protocol Buffers for Node

A wrapper in Node for the compiled protoc from https://github.com/protocolbuffers/protobuf.

Important

Starting with version v21.0.x, the npm package protoc is maintained in the repository https://github.com/timostamm/protobuf-npm.

You can install the latest version with:

npm install --save-dev protoc@latest
npx protoc --version

Note that the JavaScript generator has been removed from protoc, and lives in a separate repository now: https://github.com/protocolbuffers/protobuf-javascript Consequently, the package protoc no longer provides an API to generate JavaScript code, but you can easily achieve the same functionality with a small function.

Example script to call protoc from JS

import { spawnSync } from "node:child_process";
import { mkdtempSync, readdirSync, statSync } from "node:fs";
import { join } from "node:path";
import { tmpdir } from "node:os";

function compile(files: string[]): string[] {
  const out = mkdtempSync(join(tmpdir(), "protoc-output"));
  // Just as an example, use --php_out to generate PHP code
  const ret = spawnSync(
    "protoc", ["--php_out=" + out, ...files],
    { encoding: "utf8"},
  );
  if (ret.status !== 0) {
    throw new Error(ret.stderr);
  }
  return readdirSync(out, { recursive: true, encoding: "utf8" }).filter((f) =>
    statSync(join(out, f)).isFile(),
  );
}

// Run with `npx node example.ts`
console.log(compile(["proto/msg.proto"])); // [ 'Msg.php', 'GPBMetadata/Proto/Msg.php' ]

The information below applies to the package protoc version 1.1.3 and earlier:

Version

It's currently using Protocol Buffers v3.20.3.

Platforms

Google only provides binary files for Windows, Linux and OSX in x86_64 and x86_32.

Examples

There's currently no documentation. Hopefully this example will help.

var protoc = require("protoc");

protoc.library(["path/to/file.proto", "path/to/file2.proto"], function(err, files) {
  if (err) {
    console.error(err);
    return;
  }

  // Handle the JavaScript Vinyl files.
  // These files can be used in Google Closure Compiler,
  // but they require the files in
  // https://github.com/google/protobuf/tree/master/js
  
  // ...
});

It's also possible to directly call the protoc binary file:

npx protoc --help