.TH protoc "1" "December 2022" protoc "User Commands"
.SH NAME
protoc \- Protobuf compiler
.SH SYNOPSIS
protoc
.RI [ OPTION ]
.I PROTO_FILES
.SH DESCRIPTION
.PP
Parse
.I PROTO_FILES
and generate output based on the options given.
.SH OPTIONS
.TP
.B \-I\fIPATH\fR, \fB\-\-proto_path=\fIPATH
Specify the directory in which to search for imports.
May be specified multiple times; directories will be searched in order.
If not given, the current working directory is used.
If not found in any of the these directories, the
.B \-\-descriptor_set_in
descriptors will be checked for required proto file.
.TP
.B \-\-version
Show version info and exit.
.TP
.B \-h\fR, \fB\-\-help
Show a help message and exit.
.TP
.BI \-\-encode= MESSAGE_TYPE
Read a text-format message of the given type
from standard input and write it in binary
to standard output.
The message type must be defined in
.I PROTO_FILES
or their imports.
.TP
.B \-\-deterministic_output
When using
.BR \-\-encode ,
ensure map fields are deterministically ordered.
Note that this order is not canonical,
and changes across builds or releases of
.BR protoc (1).
.TP
.BI \-\-decode= MESSAGE_TYPE
Read a binary message of the given type
from standard input and write it in text format
to standard output.
The message type must be defined in
.I PROTO_FILES
or their imports.
.TP
.B \-\-decode_raw
Read an arbitrary protocol message
from standard input and write the raw tag/value pairs in text format
to standard output.
No
.I PROTO_FILES
should be given when using this flag.
.TP
.BI \-\-descriptor_set_in= FILES
Specifies a delimited list of
.I FILES
each containing a
.B FileDescriptorSet
(a protocol buffer defined in
.BR descriptor.proto ).
The
.B FileDescriptor
for each of the
.I PROTO_FILES
provided will be loaded from these
.BR FileDescriptorSets .
If a
.B FileDescriptor
appears multiple times, the first occurrence will be used.
.TP
.B \-o\fIFILE\fR, \fB\-\-descriptor_set_out=\fIFILE
Writes a
.B FileDescriptorSet
(a protocol buffer, defined in
.BR descriptor.proto )
containing all of the input files to
.IR FILE .
.TP
.B \-\-include_imports
When using
.BR \-\-descriptor_set_out ,
also include all dependencies of the input files in the set,
so that the set is self-contained.
.TP
.B \-\-include_source_info
When using
.BR \-\-descriptor_set_out ,
do not strip
.B SourceCodeInfo
from the
.BR FileDescriptorProto .
This results in vastly larger descriptors
that include information about the original location
of each decl in the source file
as well as surrounding comments.
.TP
.BI \-\-dependency_out= FILE
Write a dependency output file in the format expected by
.BR make (1).
This writes the transitive set of input file paths to
.I FILE
.TP
.BI \-\-error_format= FORMAT
Set the format in which to print errors.
.I FORMAT
may be
.RB \(oq gcc \(cq
(the default) or
.RP \(oq msvs \(cq
(Microsoft Visual Studio format).
.TP
.B \-\-fatal_warnings
Make warnings be fatal (similar to
.B \-Werr
in
.BR gcc (1)).
This flag will make
.BR protoc (1)
 return with a non-zero exit code
if any warnings are generated.
.TP
.B \-\-print_free_field_numbers
Print the free field numbers of the messages
defined in the given proto files.
Groups share the same field number space with the parent message.
Extension ranges are counted as occupied fields numbers.
.TP
.BI \-\-plugin= EXECUTABLE
Specifies a plugin executable to use.
Normally,
.BR protoc (1)
searches the
.B PATH
for plugins, but you may specify additional executables
not in the path using this flag.
Additionally,
.I EXECUTABLE
may be of the form
.BR NAME=\fIPATH ,
in which case the given plugin name
is mapped to the given executable
even if the executable\(cqs own name differs.
.TP
.BI \-\-cpp_out= OUT_DIR
Generate C++ header and source.
.TP
.BI \-\-csharp_out= OUT_DIR
Generate C# source file.
.TP
.BI \-\-java_out= OUT_DIR
Generate Java source file.
.TP
.BI \-\-js_out= OUT_DIR
Generate JavaScript source.
.TP
.BI \-\-kotlin_out= OUT_DIR
Generate Kotlin file.
.TP
.BI \-\-objc_out= OUT_DIR
Generate Objective-C header and source.
.TP
.BI \-\-php_out= OUT_DIR
Generate PHP source file.
.TP
.BI \-\-python_out= OUT_DIR
Generate Python source file.
.TP
.BI \-\-ruby_out= OUT_DIR
Generate Ruby source file.
.TP
.BI @ <filename>
Read options and filenames from file.
If a relative file path is specified,
the file will be searched in the working directory.
The
.B \-\-proto_path
option will not affect how this argument file is searched.
Content of the file will be expanded in the position of
.BI @ <filename>
as in the argument list.
Note that shell expansion is not applied to the content of the file
(i.e., you cannot use quotes, wildcards, escapes, commands, etc.).
Each line corresponds to a single argument, even if it contains spaces.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.BR make (1),
.BR gcc (1)