Flatbuffers

FlatBuffers is an efficient cross platform serialization library for C++, C#, C, Go, Java, Kotlin, JavaScript, Lobster, Lua, TypeScript, PHP, Python, Rust and Swift. It was originally created at Google for game development and other performance-critical applications.

It is available as Open Source on GitHub under the Apache license, v2 (see LICENSE.txt).

Using

Step 1. Add these lines to your application componenent.mk file:

COMPONENT_DEPENDS += flatbuffers

Step 2. Add these lines to your application:

#include <flatbuffers/flatbuffers>

Or directly use the header file generated from the flatc compiler.

Step 3. Basic example:

#include "monster.h"

using namespace MyGame::Example;

void init()
{
   Serial.begin(SERIAL_BAUD_RATE);

   // demonstration how to encode data into a flatbuffer
   flatbuffers::FlatBufferBuilder builder;

   auto name = builder.CreateString("Sming Monster");

   MonsterBuilder monster_builder(builder);
   monster_builder.add_name(name);

   auto orc = monster_builder.Finish();

   // Call `Finish()` to instruct the builder that this monster is complete.
   // Note: Regardless of how you created the `orc`, you still need to call
   // `Finish()` on the `FlatBufferBuilder`.
   builder.Finish(orc);

   // and then decode it
   uint8_t *buffer = builder.GetBufferPointer();
   auto monster = GetMonster(buffer);
   Serial.printf("Monster name: %s\n", monster->name()->c_str());
}

Further reading

Take a look at the official flatbuffers tutorial.

References

Used by

SoC support

  • esp32

  • esp32c3

  • esp32s2

  • esp32s3

  • esp8266

  • host

  • rp2040

Submodule: src