Installing Google Protocol Buffers on mac
There are some issues with building protobuf 2.4.1 from source on a Mac. There is a patch that also has to be applied. All this is contained within the homebrew protobuf241 formula, so I would advise using it.
To install protocol buffer version 2.4.1 type the following into a terminal:
brew tap homebrew/versions
brew install protobuf241
If you already have a protocol buffer version that you tried to install from source, you can type the following into a terminal to have the source code overwritten by the homebrew version:
brew link --force --overwrite protobuf241
Check that you now have the correct version installed by typing:
protoc --version
It should display 2.4.1
This is not via brew, but the end result is the same.
- Download the protobuf-2.4.1 from https://github.com/protocolbuffers/protobuf/releases/tag/v2.4.1
- Extract the tar.gz file.
- $cd ~/Downloads/protobuf-2.4.1
- $./configure
- $make
- $make check
- $sudo make install
- $which protoc
- $protoc --version
Steps 4-7 are from the README.txt file from the protobuf tarball.
It's a new year and there's a new mismatch between the version of protobuf in Homebrew and the cutting edge release. As of February 2016, brew install protobuf will give you version 2.6.1.
If you want the 3.0 beta release instead, you can install it with:
brew install --devel protobuf
If you landed here looking for how to install Protocol Buffers on Mac, it can be done using Homebrew by running the command below
brew install protobuf
It installs the latest version of protobuf available. For me, at the time of writing, this installed the v3.7.1
If you'd like to install an older version, please look up the available ones from the package page Protobuf Package - Homebrew and install that specific version of the package.
The oldest available protobuf version in this package is v3.6.1.3
For some reason I need to use protobuf 2.4.1 in my project on OS X El Capitan. However homebrew has removed protobuf241 from its formula. I install it according @kksensei's answer manually and have to fix some error during the process.
During the make process, I get 3 error like following:
google/protobuf/message.cc:130:60: error: implicit instantiation of undefined template 'std::__1::basic_istream<char, std::__1::char_traits<char> >'
return ParseFromZeroCopyStream(&zero_copy_input) && input->eof();
^
/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/../lib/c++/v1/iosfwd:108:28: note: template is declared here
class _LIBCPP_TYPE_VIS basic_istream;
^
google/protobuf/message.cc:135:67: error: implicit instantiation of undefined template 'std::__1::basic_istream<char, std::__1::char_traits<char> >'
return ParsePartialFromZeroCopyStream(&zero_copy_input) && input->eof();
^
/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/../lib/c++/v1/iosfwd:108:28: note: template is declared here
class _LIBCPP_TYPE_VIS basic_istream;
^
google/protobuf/message.cc:175:16: error: implicit instantiation of undefined template 'std::__1::basic_ostream<char, std::__1::char_traits<char> >'
return output->good();
^
/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/../lib/c++/v1/iosfwd:110:28: note: template is declared here
class _LIBCPP_TYPE_VIS basic_ostream;
^(Sorry, I dont know how to attach code when the code contains '`' )
If you get the same error, please edit src/google/protobuf/message.cc, add #include <istream> at the top of the file and do $ make again and should get no errors. After that do $ sudo make install. When install finished $protoc --version should display the correct result.