Protocol Buffers

Protocol Buffers is a mechanism for serializing structured data that works across different programming languages and platforms. Developers use it to define how data should be structured once, then generate code to read and write that data across various systems and formats. The tool is comparable to XML but aims for a smaller footprint, faster performance, and simpler implementation. Protocol Buffers was developed by Google and is licensed under BSD licenses.

The tool supports code generation in multiple languages, including C++, C#, Dart, Go, Java, Kotlin, Objective-C, Python, Rust, and Ruby, with PHP support available through proto3. Developers define their data structures using a simple syntax, and the tool generates language-specific code to handle serialization and deserialization automatically, reducing the need for manual implementation.