Fast and complete Perl protobuf implementation using uPB and Google .proto parser
$dynamic = Google::ProtocolBuffers::Dynamic->new;
$dynamic->load_string("person.proto", <<'EOT');
syntax = "proto2";
package humans;
message Person {
required string name = 1;
required int32 id = 2;
optional string email = 3;
}
EOT
$dynamic->map({ package => 'humans', prefix => 'Humans' });
# encoding/decoding
$person = Humans::Person->decode("\x0a\x03foo\x10\x1f");
$person = Humans::Person->decode_json('{"id":31,"name":"John Doe"}');
$bytes = Humans::Person->encode($person);
$bytes = Humans::Person->encode_json($person);
# field accessors
$person = Humans::Person->new;
$person->set_id(77);
$id = $person->get_id;See the full documentation on MetaCPAN.
This module provides a complete Protocol Buffers implementation for Perl: it supports both proto2 and proto3 syntax, and it supports gRPC client/server generation using Grpc::XS as the transport (other transports can be added).
Since Google C++ library is used for Protocol Buffer parsing and loading, the full protocol buffers syntax is supported. Serialization/deserialization uses uPB, because it provides a better interface for the specific task of creating a protobuf library for a dynamic language.
There is a simple benchmark script in scripts/benchmark.pl:
it only tests a small subset of features, and the exact speed difference is going to depend heavily on the
exact shape of the data and the protobuf schema. As expected, Google::ProtocolBuffers::Dynamic is much faster than the
pure-Perl Google::ProtocolBuffers implementation. JSON::XS and Sereal are included only as speed reference: the feature set
of Protocol Buffers, JSON and Sereal is different enough that one can't be used as a drop-in for the other.
Example results, running on Perl 5.20 on an Intel i7-3537U
Encoder
Rate protobuf_pp protobuf sereal json
protobuf_pp 95467/s -- -91% -95% -95%
protobuf 1071850/s 1023% -- -47% -47%
sereal 2025658/s 2022% 89% -- -0%
json 2029876/s 2026% 89% 0% --
Decoder
Rate protobuf_pp json protobuf sereal
protobuf_pp 64576/s -- -85% -90% -95%
json 420872/s 552% -- -37% -67%
protobuf 670690/s 939% 59% -- -47%
sereal 1274310/s 1873% 203% 90% --
Encoder (arrays)
Rate protobuf_pp protobuf json sereal
protobuf_pp 853/s -- -97% -98% -99%
protobuf 33184/s 3789% -- -15% -64%
json 39009/s 4471% 18% -- -58%
sereal 92839/s 10780% 180% 138% --
Decoder (arrays)
Rate protobuf_pp protobuf json sereal
protobuf_pp 519/s -- -95% -97% -97%
protobuf 10987/s 2019% -- -28% -41%
json 15175/s 2827% 38% -- -18%
sereal 18618/s 3491% 69% 23% --
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