115 lines
5.9 KiB
Plaintext
115 lines
5.9 KiB
Plaintext
This directory contains project files for compiling Protocol Buffers using
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MSVC. This is not the recommended way to do Protocol Buffer development --
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we prefer to develop under a Unix-like environment -- but it may be more
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accessible to those who primarily work with MSVC.
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Compiling and Installing
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========================
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1) Open protobuf.sln in Microsoft Visual Studio.
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2) Choose "Debug" or "Release" configuration as desired.*
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3) From the Build menu, choose "Build Solution". Wait for compiling to finish.
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4) From a command shell, run tests.exe and lite-test.exe and check that all
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tests pass.
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5) Run extract_includes.bat to copy all the public headers into a separate
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"include" directory (under the top-level package directory).
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6) Copy the contents of the include directory to wherever you want to put
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headers.
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7) Copy protoc.exe wherever you put build tools (probably somewhere in your
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PATH).
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8) Copy libprotobuf.lib, libprotobuf-lite.lib, and libprotoc.lib wherever you
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put libraries.
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* To avoid conflicts between the MSVC debug and release runtime libraries, when
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compiling a debug build of your application, you may need to link against a
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debug build of libprotobuf.lib. Similarly, release builds should link against
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release libs.
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DLLs vs. static linking
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=======================
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Static linking is now the default for the Protocol Buffer libraries. Due to
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issues with Win32's use of a separate heap for each DLL, as well as binary
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compatibility issues between different versions of MSVC's STL library, it is
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recommended that you use static linkage only. However, it is possible to
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build libprotobuf and libprotoc as DLLs if you really want. To do this,
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do the following:
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1) Open protobuf.sln in MSVC.
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2) For each of the projects libprotobuf, libprotobuf-lite, and libprotoc, do
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the following:
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2a) Right-click the project and choose "properties".
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2b) From the side bar, choose "General", under "Configuration Properties".
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2c) Change the "Configuration Type" to "Dynamic Library (.dll)".
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2d) From the side bar, choose "Preprocessor", under "C/C++".
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2e) Add PROTOBUF_USE_DLLS to the list of preprocessor defines.
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3) When compiling your project, make sure to #define PROTOBUF_USE_DLLS.
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When distributing your software to end users, we strongly recommend that you
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do NOT install libprotobuf.dll or libprotoc.dll to any shared location.
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Instead, keep these libraries next to your binaries, in your application's
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own install directory. C++ makes it very difficult to maintain binary
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compatibility between releases, so it is likely that future versions of these
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libraries will *not* be usable as drop-in replacements.
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If your project is itself a DLL intended for use by third-party software, we
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recommend that you do NOT expose protocol buffer objects in your library's
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public interface, and that you statically link protocol buffers into your
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library.
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ZLib support
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============
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If you want to include GzipInputStream and GzipOutputStream
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(google/protobuf/io/gzip_stream.h) in libprotoc, you will need to do a few
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additional steps:
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1) Obtain a copy of the zlib library. The pre-compiled DLL at zlib.net works.
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2) Make sure zlib's two headers are in your include path and that the .lib file
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is in your library path. You could place all three files directly into the
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vsproject directory to compile libprotobuf, but they need to be visible to
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your own project as well, so you should probably just put them into the
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VC shared icnlude and library directories.
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3) Right-click on the "tests" project and choose "properties". Navigate the
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sidebar to "Configuration Properties" -> "Linker" -> "Input".
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4) Under "Additional Dependencies", add the name of the zlib .lib file (e.g.
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zdll.lib). Make sure to update both the Debug and Release configurations.
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5) If you are compiling libprotobuf and libprotoc as DLLs (see previous
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section), repeat steps 2 and 3 for the libprotobuf and libprotoc projects.
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If you are compiling them as static libraries, then you will need to link
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against the zlib library directly from your own app.
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6) Edit config.h (in the vsprojects directory) and un-comment the line that
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#defines HAVE_ZLIB. (Or, alternatively, define this macro via the project
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settings.)
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Notes on Compiler Warnings
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==========================
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The following warnings have been disabled while building the protobuf libraries
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and compiler. You may have to disable some of them in your own project as
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well, or live with them.
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C4018 - 'expression' : signed/unsigned mismatch
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C4146 - unary minus operator applied to unsigned type, result still unsigned
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C4244 - Conversion from 'type1' to 'type2', possible loss of data.
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C4251 - 'identifier' : class 'type' needs to have dll-interface to be used by
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clients of class 'type2'
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C4267 - Conversion from 'size_t' to 'type', possible loss of data.
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C4305 - 'identifier' : truncation from 'type1' to 'type2'
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C4355 - 'this' : used in base member initializer list
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C4800 - 'type' : forcing value to bool 'true' or 'false' (performance warning)
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C4996 - 'function': was declared deprecated
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C4251 is of particular note, if you are compiling the Protocol Buffer library
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as a DLL (see previous section). The protocol buffer library uses templates in
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its public interfaces. MSVC does not provide any reasonable way to export
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template classes from a DLL. However, in practice, it appears that exporting
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templates is not necessary anyway. Since the complete definition of any
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template is available in the header files, anyone importing the DLL will just
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end up compiling instances of the templates into their own binary. The
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Protocol Buffer implementation does not rely on static template members being
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unique, so there should be no problem with this, but MSVC prints warning
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nevertheless. So, we disable it. Unfortunately, this warning will also be
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produced when compiling code which merely uses protocol buffers, meaning you
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may have to disable it in your code too.
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