Protocol buffer and OO design

Question

I\'m using protocol buffer as a wire data-format in a client-server architecture. Domain objects (java beans) will go through following life-cycle.

1. Used in client

Answer 1

We've made a protobuf-converter to solve the problem of transformation of your Domain Model Objects into Google Protobuf Messages and vice versa.

How to use it:

Domain model classes that have to be transformed into protobuf messages must satisfy conditions:

• Class has to be marked by @ProtoClass annotaion that contains reference on related protobuf message class.
• Class fields has to be marked by @ProtoField annotaion. These fields must have getters and setters.

E.g.:

@ProtoClass(ProtobufUser.class)
public class User {

    @ProtoField
    private String name;
    @ProtoField
    private String password;

    // getters and setters for 'name' and 'password' fields
    ...
}

Code for conversion User instance into related protobuf message:

User userDomain = new User();
...
ProtobufUser userProto = Converter.create().toProtobuf(ProtobufUser.class, userDomain);

Code for backward conversion:

User userDomain = Converter.create().toDomain(User.class, userProto);

Conversion of lists of objects is similar to single object conversion.