What Does Protocol Buffer Mean?
A protocol buffer is a platform- and language-neutral automated mechanism for serializing structured data. A protocol buffer is smaller, simpler and faster than XML. Initially developed at Google to deal with an index server response protocol, the company has provided a code generator under an open-source license for different languages. Protocol buffers are extremely useful for developing applications for storing data or for communication.
Techopedia Explains Protocol Buffer
Currently, protocol buffers support generated code in programming languages such as C++, Java and Python. Protocol buffers are designed to be smaller and faster than XML and aim for both simplicity and performance. Similar to Microsoft Bond or Apache Thrift protocols, Protocol buffers offer a concrete RPC protocol stack to be used for defined services. A protocol buffer makes use of an interface description language that explains the data structure and an application which generates the source code based on that description. The source code is then used in parsing the bytes of the structured data.
