Protocol Buffers (Protobuf) Reader/Writer

The Protocol Buffers Format (Protobuf) is an open wire-based format developed by Google.

This documentation assumes familiarity with the Protobuf format. Further information on Protobuf can be found in Protocol Buffers Documentation.

The Protobuf reader uses a .proto schema file to interpret the serialized contents of the .pb binary file or .json file into various feature types representing Message types and fields in the datafile.

A Protobuf dataset will include a .proto schema definition and either a .pb or .json data file.

Versions

FME reads:

Proto2
Proto3
Editions 2023

Note Since Protobuf is a backward- and forward-compatible format (with some exceptions), it is possible to partially read unsupported versions. Unreadable data will be labelled as _unknown.

Product and System Requirements

Format	FME Platform			Operating System
Reader/Writer	FME Form	FME Flow	FME Flow Hosted	Windows 64-bit	Linux	Mac
Reader	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Writer	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

Schema Generation

How the writer builds the .proto schema from FME features.