polyml-protobuf

Protobuf implementation in Poly/ML.

Building

This library needs the Google Protocol Buffers library for code generation (not needed at compile-time). On OS X this can be installed using Homebrew:

brew install protobuf

Building the library for Poly/ML is done by:

./configure
make
make install

Generating code

The protocol buffer library takes a .proto file and generates a .pb.ml file containing type definitions for messages and enumerations, as well as serialization functions. To generate code for a file my_descriptor.proto in the current working directory, use the following command:

protoc my_descriptor.proto --ml_out="./"

Note: any generated files are dependent on the MlGenLib.ml file that provides serialization functions and other core functionality.

Tests

There are 3 types of tests: correctness of wire format, serialization speed and message ordering speed. Scripts for running these tests are located in test_scripts/. Correctness is evaluated by:

• encoding benchmark data in ML and decoding it in ML
• encoding benchmark data in ML and decoding it in C++ and vice-versa

Performance is evaluated by comparing C++, OCaml and Poly/ML Protocol Buffers implementations.