This directory contains example code that uses Protocol Buffers to manage an address book. The script add-person.ts adds a new person to an address book, prompting the user to input the person's information. The script list-people.ts lists people already in the address book.

Note that this example is compatible with all other language implementations, because the serialization format is standardized. That means you could add a person with Dart to an address book, and list people with TypeScript interchangeably.

You can easily run the example for yourself - you will only need npm or yarn. Download the source, then run the following commands:

From the project root, first install and build all required packages:

npm install -w packages/protobuf-example
npm run -w packages/protobuf build
npm run -w packages/protoplugin build
npm run -w packages/protoc-gen-es build

Next, cd into the example directory and build:

cd packages/protobuf-example
npm run build

To add a person to the address book:

node dist/esm/add-person.js addressbook.bin

To list all entries of the address book:

node dist/esm/list-people.js addressbook.bin

If you want to use buf to generate the code, simply run npm run generate in this directory. buf.gen.yaml contains the plugin configuration.

If you want to use protoc, the following command is equivalent:

protoc -I . --es_out=src/gen --es_opt=target=ts --plugin=protoc-gen-es=./node_modules/.bin/protoc-gen-es addressbook.proto

Don't forget to run npm run build to compile TypeScript to JavaScript, so that Node will understand it. You do not need TypeScript to use Protobuf-ES. Just set the plugin option target=js if you prefer plain JavaScript, or target=js+dts if you prefer JavaScript with TypeScript declaration files.