I am interested in using protocol buffers for the following scenario: I have a large number of small data points I need to serialize to a file. Once this serialization process is complete, the data will be strictly read only, accessed by multiple threads, until I need to create a new version of the file. The application will access the file at startup, and while executing will need to retrieve data points based on a given parameter. Pretty much behaves like tabular data you would find in a database table. I need to retrieve a "row", based on a "primary key". Yet a traditional database is not a good solution in this situation.
My understanding is that it's not a good idea to have large messages, but you can have a large number of small messages within a file, and it shouldn't be a problem. I have seen the .proto file structure and how messages are determined. What I don't understand (maybe I missed that part in the documentation) is how to make searches for messages within a file. If I use the "repeated" qualifier, it will let me have more than one message in another one, but I'll just retrieve it as a list. I can't specify what subset of messages I want. Can I sort messages based on a given field? Can I request a subset of messages by index range, or some other criteria? Can I "browse" through a message file, given a particular search parameter? Can I have some sort of Map inside the .proto definition, where I organize elements in key - value fashion? Alternatively, are my assumptions of what I should be able to do with protocol buffers wrong from the start? I assumed this kind of thing was possible since the drizzle devs are using protocol buffers for their database implementation. Link below. http://drizzle.org/wiki/Table_Proto_Definition Thanks in advance. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Protocol Buffers" group. To post to this group, send email to protobuf@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to protobuf+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/protobuf?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---