ragu

README

ragù 🍝

ragu allows you to generate Go and gRPC protobuf code without using protoc. It does not require any non-go dependencies and does not shell out to other binaries.

Features

• Provides both a CLI and a Go library to generate code (use it with mage!)
• Doesn't require protoc, other binaries, or cgo; it is completely self-contained
• Can optionally generate gRPC bindings
• Generates the same output as protoc
• Removes unnecessary output directory configuration. Files are generated into the current directory by default, or into a directory specified with the -o flag.
• Import .proto files using go modules

Instructions (CLI)

1. Download the CLI binary from the releases page
2. $ ragu yourtypes.proto (generates ./yourtypes.pb.go, ./yourtypes_grpc.pb.go)
3. Yep, that's it.

Instructions (Go)

1. $ go get github.com/kralicky/ragu
2. Generate code:

files, err := ragu.GenerateCode("yourtypes.proto", true) // true = generate gRPC bindings
if err != nil {
  return err
}
for _, f := range files {
  // f will contain the generated code and file basename, e.g. yourtypes.pb.go
}

---

FAQ

How does it work?

Ragu works by parsing .proto files and building the same CodeGeneratorRequest that protoc sends to plugins. Both the Go and gRPC protobuf generator packages are imported by ragu and used as libraries to simulate the plugins being called with the CodeGeneratorRequest that would normally be read via stdin when they are invoked as external binaries. The result is a single static binary (and Go library) that is a drop-in replacement for protoc+protoc-gen-go+protoc-gen-go-grpc.

What versions of protobuf, gRPC, etc. libraries does this require?

Whatever was in master at the time of release.

Are there differences between protoc and ragu generated code?

• The ragu version used will be patched into the comment header to replace the unused protoc version

 // Code generated by protoc-gen-go-grpc. DO NOT EDIT.
 // versions:
 // - protoc-gen-go-grpc v1.1.0
-// - protoc             (unknown)
+// - ragù               v0.1.0
 // source: pkg/types/types.proto

• Comments in .proto files are currently being ignored and will not show up in generated code. This will be added in a future version.

Otherwise, the generated code should be exactly identical. If you find any errors in ragu's generated code, please submit a bug report!

Is ragu as fast as protoc?

I made no attempt whatsoever to optimize this code, but it's pretty much the same as far as I can tell.

Why the name?

This is left as an exercise to the reader.