protobuf: protobuf (Google's data interchange format) protobuf: protobuf: Protocol buffers are a flexible, efficient, automated mechanism for protobuf: serializing structured data, think XML, but smaller, faster, and protobuf: simpler. You define how you want your data to be structured once, protobuf: then you can use special generated source code to easily write and protobuf: read your structured data to and from a variety of data streams protobuf: and using a variety of languages. You can even update your data protobuf: structure without breaking deployed programs that are compiled protobuf: against the "old" format. protobuf: