> The first issue I encountered was the lack of a proper sample for Avro C > and the new value API in the documentation. The given sample still shows > the datum API. I figured it out by looking at the unit tests, but it > wasn't an easy "getting started".
Documentation has definitely not been our strong point with the C bindings, and I apologize for that. There is a more introductory example available here: http://dcreager.github.io/avro-examples/ Hopefully that will reinforce what you learned looking through the test cases, and maybe give you a couple of insights that you didn't pick up on before. And of course we're happy to answer questions here on the mailing list. One open agenda item is to better incorporate that example into the documentation at avro.apache.org, so that it's easier to find. And to add proper reference documentation in the form of man pages. > For now I've just defined a very simple JSON schema which I'm using to > serialize and deserialize a bunch of booleans and ints. However, I may > be interested in developing tools in other languages for communicating > with my C programs. This is where I'd really like to know how exactly I > can do RPC with Avro C. Aside from the apparent lack of information as > to how we can do RPC with Avro C, there is also inconsistent information > given about the level of support. Somes slides online show RPC as being > supported for C, while in other places the docs say RPC is not > implemented for Avro C. As far as I'm aware, there is no support for RPC in any of the released versions of the C bindings, nor in the Subversion trunk branch. There is an open issue to add that support: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/AVRO-777 It even includes a patch, but from two years ago, so you would have to update it to the latest API. There were also a couple of portability questions. But it's a start, if you've got the time to look at it. The main road block, as always, is time; there are many fewer people using and developing the C bindings (especially compared to the Java bindings), and those who are using it are really only using the data serialization part of the standard. So feature requests like these have often fallen by the wayside if there's not someone with a pressing need willing to drive the process forward. I hope this helps; please let me know if I can answer any other questions you might have. cheers –doug
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