What happens if server and client are using different proto definitions?

[tobias.krueger]

Hi group,

we just realized, that the server's developing team was using a different proto definition than the client team. Both sides are implementing in C++

e.g. Server is using

message Foo {

    string value = 1;

};

The client is using

message Foo {

    uint32 value = 1;

};

What happens, if the server sends the message containing the string in a stream to the client?

Will the client just read the default value for the uint32 (==0), or will the client become garbage data or even worse - is a crash possible?

Thanks for your help

Tobias

[dfa...@google.com]

A crash should not occur as a result of a corrupt message (which is how a message with a conflicting encoding appears). 

On the client side, an error (non-OK grpc status) should occur if this field is set by the server.  If a message comes back with a non-OK status, the value read from the message would be the default (0).

Doug