node-red-contrib-protobuf

This project features protobuf encode/decode nodes. Load a proto file, supply a desired type for encoding or decoding and have fun.

Installation

To install run

npm install node-red-contrib-protobuf --production

Omit the --production flag, in order to install the development dependencies for testing and coverage.

This node depends on protobufjs as the main package and will install it along with it.

Usage

1. Grab a proto with the message types required
2. Place an encode/decode node on a flow
3. Open the editor and add a new protofile configuration node
4. Supply the path to your .proto file
5. Either supply a proto type
   1. within the encode/decode configuration
   2. with the msg.protobufType field (takes precedence over node configuration)

Note on the protofile node The proto file node watches the specified file for changes on the filesystem through nodejs fs API. If the file contents of the .proto-file change on disk, the file becomes reloaded. This may happen multiple times at once due to OS and editor specifics.

Contribution

To setup your local development environment first clone this repository and then use docker to get your node-red environment up and running like this:

sudo docker run -p 1880:1880 -v $PWD:/tmp/node-red-contrib-protobuf:Z -d --name nodered nodered/node-red-docker

After you saved your changes to the code update the installation within the container with this command:

sudo docker exec -it nodered npm install /tmp/node-red-contrib-protobuf/ && sudo docker restart nodered

Note on --privileged and -u root: This could be required on linux machines with SELinux to avoid permission errors. Keep in mind that this is insecure and considered real bad practice. Alternativly configure your SELinux to allow access from the container to the local mounted volume in order to install the npm dependencies. This should be avoidable with the :Z flag behind volume definition.

Testing and Coverage-Report

First npm install for the dev dependencies. Tests, linting and code coverage are then available through:

npm test
npm run coverage
npm run lint

License

The BSD 3-Clause License

Alexander Wellbrock

Roadmap

• validate type from loaded .proto files
• allow .proto-path to be a URL
• expose more configuration parameters from the protobufjs API
• write tests covering misconfiguration and errors/exceptions