Re: Python C Implementation

[Orbby Chang]

Just curious is the Python C/C++ implementation is on its way?

Kenton Varda
Wed, 03 Jun 2009 11:34:35 -0700

The plan is to modify the current Python implementation so that
message
objects can wrap C++ protobuf objects via the reflection interface.
This
means a few things:
* The Python API will be exactly the same (except for setting an
option
saying that you want to do this wrapping).

* If we wrap DynamicMessage, then you should not have to compile any C/
C++
code specific to your message type at all. So, once the protocol
buffer
extension itself is installed, users will not have to install their
own
extensions.

* There would also be the option of wrapping generated C++ classes
specific
to your message types, which would squeeze out a few more drops of
performance at the expense of having to compile C++ code.

[Kenton Varda]

Hard to say.  Lots of people have said they'd like to work on it, but somehow it never gets done.  Would you like to work on it?

That said, I have written a patch which significantly improves Python Protobuf performance (by an order of magnitude or more) without using C extensions, which will be part of the next release.