# Protocol Buffers for Nim
[](https://travis-ci.org/oswjk/nimpb)
A Nim library to serialize/deserialize Protocol Buffers.
To actually generate Nim code from protobuf definitions, you need the protoc
tool. To make things simple, nimpb depends on
[nimpb_protoc](https://github.com/oswjk/nimpb_protoc), which bundles protoc
binaries for the most common platforms (Windows, Linux, macOS).
**NOTE** At the moment this is at a very rough state. Do not use for any kind of production use. Anything can change at any time. You've been warned.
# Example
Given the following file:
```
syntax = "proto3";
message Test1 {
int32 a = 1;
enum MyEnum {
Foo = 0;
Bar = 1;
}
MyEnum e = 2;
}
```
You can use nimpb_build (a tool that comes with nimpb) to generate code like this (procs not included in the example):
```nim
type
Test1_MyEnum* {.pure.} = enum
Foo = 0
Bar = 1
Test1* = ref Test1Obj
Test1Obj* = object of RootObj
a: int32
e: MyEnum
```
And you can use the generated code like this:
```nim
let message = newTest1()
message.a = 150
message.e = Test1_MyEnum.Bar
let data = serialize(message)
let message2 = newTest1(data)
assert message2.a == 150
assert message2.e == Test1_MyEnum.Bar
```
# Other libraries
If you do not want to depend on the `protoc` compiler, check Peter Munch-Ellingsen's [protobuf library](https://github.com/PMunch/protobuf-nim). It handles parsing of the protobuf files in compile time which can make building simpler.
# Services
For an example about how to generate services, see [nimtwirp](https://github.com/oswjk/nimtwirp).
