google/flatbuffers

logo FlatBuffers

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FlatBuffers is a cross platform serialization library architected for maximum memory efficiency. It allows you to directly access serialized data without parsing/unpacking it first, while still having great forwards/backwards compatibility.

Quick Start

1. Build the compiler for flatbuffers (flatc)

   Use cmake to create the build files for your platform and then perform the compilation (Linux example).

   cmake -G "Unix Makefiles"
   make -j
   

2. Define your flatbuffer schema (.fbs)

   Write the schema to define the data you want to serialize. See monster.fbs for an example.

3. Generate code for your language(s)

   Use the flatc compiler to take your schema and generate language-specific code:

   ./flatc --cpp --rust monster.fbs
   

   Which generates monster_generated.h and monster_generated.rs files.

4. Serialize data

   Use the generated code, as well as the FlatBufferBuilder to construct your serialized buffer. (C++ example)

5. Transmit/store/save Buffer

   Use your serialized buffer however you want. Send it to someone, save it for later, etc...

6. Read the data

   Use the generated accessors to read the data from the serialized buffer.

   It doesn't need to be the same language/schema version, FlatBuffers ensures the data is readable across languages and schema versions. See the Rust example reading the data written by C++.

Documentation

Go to our landing page to browse our documentation.

Supported operating systems

• Windows
• macOS
• Linux
• Android
• And any others with a recent C++ compiler (C++ 11 and newer)

Supported programming languages

Code generation and runtime libraries for many popular languages.

1. C
2. C++ - snapcraft.io
3. C# - nuget.org
4. Dart - pub.dev
5. Go - go.dev
6. Java - Maven
7. JavaScript - NPM
8. Kotlin
9. Lobster
10. Lua
11. PHP
12. Python - PyPI
13. Rust - crates.io
14. Swift - swiftpackageindex
15. TypeScript - NPM
16. Nim

Versioning

FlatBuffers does not follow traditional SemVer versioning (see rationale) but rather uses a format of the date of the release.

Contribution

• FlatBuffers Issues Tracker to submit an issue.
• stackoverflow.com with flatbuffers tag for any questions regarding FlatBuffers.

To contribute to this project, see CONTRIBUTING.

Community

• Discord Server

Security

Please see our Security Policy for reporting vulnerabilities.

Licensing

Flatbuffers is licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0. See LICENSE for the full license text.