Proof of concept exploring protobuf in the browser

.gitignore

node_modules/

index.js

// Load in our dependencies
var protobuf = require('protobufjs');

// Define our protobuf type
// Inspired by: https://github.com/dcodeIO/protobuf.js/blob/6.7.3/examples/streaming-rpc.js
var root = protobuf.Root.fromJSON({
  nested: {
    Message: {
      fields: {
        content: {
          type: 'string',
          id: 1
        },
        timestamp: {
          type: 'string',
          id: 2
        }
      }
    }
  }
});
var Message = root.lookup('Message');

// Define and run our main function
function main() {
  var obj = {
    content: 'Hello World!',
    timestamp: 'NOW',
  };
  var msg = Message.encode(obj).finish();
  console.log(msg);
  console.log(msg.toString('utf8'));
  console.log('protobuf', msg.length);
  console.log('');

  // DEV: We don't save much with a flat array but I guess we save some space and
  //   I wonder what decryption cost is on 500kb...
  //   They have a benchmark, checking it out now...
  //   https://github.com/dcodeIO/protobuf.js/blob/6.7.3/bench/index.js
  var jsonStr = JSON.stringify([obj.content, obj.timestamp]);
  console.log(jsonStr);
  console.log(jsonStr.toString('utf8'));
  console.log('json', jsonStr.length);
}
main();

package.json

{
  "name": "gist-protobuf-explore",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "Proof of concept exploring protobuf in the browser",
  "main": "index.js",
  "scripts": {
    "test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1"
  },
  "author": "Todd Wolfson <[email protected]> (http://twolfson.com/)",
  "license": "Unlicense",
  "dependencies": {
    "protobufjs": "~6.7.3"
  }
}