Protobuf

A lightweight and performant Protocol Buffers (protobuf) encoding and decoding library for JavaScript/TypeScript, providing tools to read, write, and work with protobuf messages efficiently.

Features

• Encode and decode protobuf messages with full support for:
  • Varint, fixed32, fixed64, length-delimited fields
  • ZigZag encoding for signed integers (sint32/sint64)
  • Nested messages and packed repeated fields
• Low-level wire format utilities for protobuf serialization/deserialization
• ProtobufReader for parsing buffers into typed values with safe bounds checks
• ProtobufWriter for writing protobuf-encoded data to buffers
• Declarative message class generation with createMessageClass and Message base class
• Registry to manage protobuf message descriptors and types
• Fully typed TypeScript support with detailed field and wire type definitions

Installation

npm install protobuffers

or

yarn add protobuffers

Usage

import { ProtobufReader, ProtobufWriter, createMessageClass, Message } from 'protobuffers';

// Writing a protobuf message
const writer = new ProtobufWriter();
writer.writeInt32(1, -1);
writer.writeString(2, "Hello, protobuf!");
const buffer = writer.finish();

// Reading a protobuf message
const reader = new ProtobufReader(buffer);
while (reader.hasMore()) {
  const tag = reader.readTag();
  if (!tag) break;

  switch (tag.fieldNumber) {
    case 1:
      const intValue = reader.readInt32();
      console.log('int32 field:', intValue);
      break;
    case 2:
      const strValue = reader.readString();
      console.log('string field:', strValue);
      break;
    default:
      reader.skipField(tag.wireType);
  }
}

Contributing

Contributions and issues are welcome! Please open issues or pull requests.

License

MIT License