To build protobuf from source, the following tools are needed:
* autoconf
* automake
* libtool
* curl (used to download gmock)
* make
* g++
* unzip
On Ubuntu, you can install them with:
$ sudo apt-get install autoconf automake libtool curl make g++ unzip
On other platforms, please use the corresponding package managing tool to
install them before proceeding.
If you get the source from github, you need to generate the configure script
first:
$ ./autogen.sh
This will download gmock source (which is used for C++ Protocol Buffer
unit-tests) to the current directory and run automake, autoconf, etc.
to generate the configure script and various template makefiles.
You can skip this step if you are using a release package (which already
contains gmock and the configure script).
To build and install the C++ Protocol Buffer runtime and the Protocol
Buffer compiler (protoc) execute the following:
$ ./configure
$ make
$ make check
$ sudo make install
$ sudo ldconfig # refresh shared library cache.
If "make check" fails, you can still install, but it is likely that
some features of this library will not work correctly on your system.
Proceed at your own risk.
For advanced usage information on configure and make, please refer to the
autoconf documentation:
http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/manual/autoconf.html#Running-configure-Scripts
**Hint on install location**
By default, the package will be installed to /usr/local. However,
on many platforms, /usr/local/lib is not part of LD_LIBRARY_PATH.
You can add it, but it may be easier to just install to /usr
instead. To do this, invoke configure as follows:
./configure --prefix=/usr
If you already built the package with a different prefix, make sure
to run "make clean" before building again.
**Compiling dependent packages**
To compile a package that uses Protocol Buffers, you need to pass
various flags to your compiler and linker. As of version 2.2.0,
Protocol Buffers integrates with pkg-config to manage this. If you
have pkg-config installed, then you can invoke it to get a list of
flags like so:
pkg-config --cflags protobuf # print compiler flags
pkg-config --libs protobuf # print linker flags
pkg-config --cflags --libs protobuf # print both
For example:
c++ my_program.cc my_proto.pb.cc `pkg-config --cflags --libs protobuf`
Note that packages written prior to the 2.2.0 release of Protocol
Buffers may not yet integrate with pkg-config to get flags, and may
not pass the correct set of flags to correctly link against
libprotobuf. If the package in question uses autoconf, you can
often fix the problem by invoking its configure script like:
configure CXXFLAGS="$(pkg-config --cflags protobuf)" \
LIBS="$(pkg-config --libs protobuf)"
This will force it to use the correct flags.
If you are writing an autoconf-based package that uses Protocol
Buffers, you should probably use the PKG_CHECK_MODULES macro in your
configure script like:
PKG_CHECK_MODULES([protobuf], [protobuf])
See the pkg-config man page for more info.
If you only want protobuf-lite, substitute "protobuf-lite" in place
of "protobuf" in these examples.
**Note for Mac users**
For a Mac system, Unix tools are not available by default. You will first need
to install Xcode from the Mac AppStore and then run the following command from
a terminal:
$ sudo xcode-select --install
To install Unix tools, you can install "port" following the instructions at
https://www.macports.org . This will reside in /opt/local/bin/port for most
Mac installations.
$ sudo /opt/local/bin/port install autoconf automake libtool
Then follow the Unix instructions above.