Protobuf for PHP is an implementation of Google's Protocol Buffers for the PHP language, supporting its binary data serialization and including a protoc plugin to generate PHP classes from .proto files.

Great effort has been put into generating PHP files that include all sort of type hints to aide IDE's with autocompletion. Therefore, it can not only be used to communicate with Protocol Buffers services but also as a generation tool for data objects no matter what the final serialization is.

For more information see the included man pages.

• PHP 5.3
• Pear's Console_CommandLine (for the protoc wrapper tool)
• Google's protoc compiler version 2.3 or above

• Standard types (numbers, string, enums, messages, etc)
• Pluggable serialization backends (codecs)
  • Standard Binary serialization
  • Standard TextFormat (serialization only)
  • PhpArray
  • JSON
  • ProtoJson (HashTag and Indexed variants)
  • XML
• Protoc compiler plugin to generate the PHP classes
• Extensions
• Unknown fields
• Packed fields
• Reflection
• Dynamic messages with annotations support
• Generates service interfaces
• Includes comments from .proto files in the generated files
• Pear package for easy installation

• Improve binary codec speed and memory usage
• Lazy-loading of nested messages

• Speed optimized code generation mode
• Support numbers beyond PHP's native limits

$person = new Tutorial\Person();
$person->name = 'DrSlump';
$person->setId(12);

$book = new Tutorial\AddressBook();
$book->addPerson($person);

// Use default codec
$data = $book->serialize();

// Use custom codec
$codec = new \DrSlump\Protobuf\Codec\Binary();
$data = $codec->encode($book);
// ... or ...
$data = $book->serialize($codec);

Install with Pear

pear channel-discover pear.pollinimini.net
pear install drslump/Protobuf-beta

You can also get the latest version by checking out a copy of the repository in your computer.

The generation tool is designed to be run as a protoc plugin, thus it should work with any proto file supported by the official compiler.

protoc --plugin=protoc-gen-php --php_out=./build tutorial.proto

To make use of non-standard options in your proto files (like php.namespace) you'll have to import the php.proto file included with the library. It's location will depend on where you've installed this library.

protoc -I=./Protobuf-PHP/library/DrSlump/Protobuf/Compiler/protos \
       --plugin=protoc-gen-php --php_out=./build tutorial.proto

In order to make your life easier, the supplied protoc plugin offers an additional execution mode, where it acts as a wrapper for the protoc invocation. It will automatically include the php.proto path so that you don't need to worry about it.

protoc-gen-php -o ./build tutorial.proto

The MIT License

Copyright (c) 2011 Iván -DrSlump- Montes

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining
a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the
'Software'), to deal in the Software without restriction, including
without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,
distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to
permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to
the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be
included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED 'AS IS', WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.
IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY
CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT,
TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE
SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.