protobuf-net communicating with C++

Question

I'm looking at protobuf-net for implementing various messaging formats, and I particularly like the contract-based approach as I don't have to mess with the proto compiler. one thing I couldn't quite find information on is, does this make it difficult to work cross-platform? there are a few C++ apps that would need to be able to parse PB data, and while I understand that protobuf-net serializes to the PB standard format, if I use the contract approach and not a proto file, how does the C++ side parse the data?

can (should?) I write a separate proto file for the (very few) cases where C++ needs to understand the data? and if so, how exactly do I know that the C++ class generated from the proto file is going to match the data from the no-proto-file C# side?

Answer 1

Yes, in theory at least they should match at the binary level, but you might want to limit yourself to types that map simply to ".proto" - so avoid things like DateTime , inheritance ( [ProtoInclude] ), etc. This also has the advantage that you should be able to use:

string proto = Serializer.GetProto<YourType>();

to get the .proto; it ( GetProto ) isn't 100%, but it works for basic types. But ultimately, the answer is "testing and tweaking"; perhaps design for interop from the outset - ie test this early.