Protobuf, import error after compilation in python3.6

Question

Directory structure:

Application/
   proto/
     payload.proto
     lab_account.proto
     public_trail.proto
   protocompiled/
     payload_pb2.py
     lab_account_pb2.py

Contents of the payload.proto

syntax = "proto3";
import "lab_account.proto";
import "public_trail.proto";

if I compile my payload.proto file, with command .

 Application⟫ protoc --proto_path=./proto --python_out=./protocompiled payload.proto

The compiled payload_pb2.py doest have the required imports. It has wrong import statement like this.

 import lab_account_pb2 as lab__account__pb2
 import public_trail_pb2 as public__trail__pb2

instead of this;

 import protocompiled.lab_account_pb2 as lab__account__pb2
 import protocompiled.public_trail_pb2 as public__trail__pb2

Also referred, https://github.com/protocolbuffers/protobuf/issues/1491 but couldnt solve the issue.

Answer 1

There is an open issue 5374 in protobuf github regarding this problem.

Until it is resolved, I use the following workaround: after protoc run a sed script (works at least for GNU sed ) which will add relative imports.

protoc $PATH/*.proto --python_out=$PROTOC_OUTDIR
sed -i $PROTOC_OUTDIR/*_pb2.py -e 's/^import [^ ]*_pb2/from . \0/'

But this works only when all files are in the same directory. More complex script will be required to handle files spread over multiple directories.