1 This directory contains the C# Protocol Buffers runtime library. 2 3 Status: Beta - ready for external testing 4 ========================================= 5 6 Usage 7 ===== 8 9 The easiest way how to use C# protobufs is via the `Google.Protobuf` 10 NuGet package. Just add the NuGet package to your VS project. 11 12 Besides C# runtime library, the NuGet package also contains 13 precompiled version of `protoc.exe` and a copy of well known `.proto` 14 files under the package's `tools` directory. 15 16 To generate C# files from your `.proto` files, invoke `protoc` with the 17 `--csharp_out` option. 18 19 Supported platforms 20 =================== 21 22 The runtime library is built as a portable class library, supporting: 23 24 - .NET 4.5 25 - Windows 8 26 - Windows Phone Silverlight 8 27 - Windows Phone 8.1 28 - .NET Core 29 30 You should be able to use Protocol Buffers in Visual Studio 2012 and 31 all later versions. This includes all code generated by `protoc`, 32 which only uses features from C# 3 and earlier. 33 34 Building 35 ======== 36 37 Open the `src/Google.Protobuf.sln` solution in Visual Studio 2015 or 38 later. You should be able to run the NUnit test from Test Explorer 39 (you might need to install NUnit Visual Studio add-in). 40 41 Although *users* of this project are only expected to have Visual 42 Studio 2012 or later, *developers* of the library are required to 43 have Visual Studio 2015 or later, as the library uses C# 6 features 44 in its implementation. These features have no impact when using the 45 compiled code - they're only relevant when building the 46 `Google.Protobuf` assembly. 47 48 History of C# protobufs 49 ======================= 50 51 This subtree was originally imported from https://github.com/jskeet/protobuf-csharp-port 52 and represents the latest development version of C# protobufs, that will now be developed 53 and maintained by Google. All the development will be done in open, under this repository 54 (https://github.com/google/protobuf). 55 56 The previous project differs from this project in a number of ways: 57 58 - The old code only supported proto2; the new code only supports 59 proto3 (so no unknown fields, no required/optional distinction, no 60 extensions) 61 - The old code was based on immutable message types and builders for 62 them 63 - The old code did not support maps or `oneof` 64 - The old code had its own JSON representation, whereas the new code 65 uses the standard protobuf JSON representation 66 - The old code had no notion of the "well-known types" which have 67 special support in the new code 68 - The old project supported some older platforms (such as older 69 versions of Silverlight) which are not currently supported in the 70 new project 71
