what's the right way to do polymorphism with protocol buffers?

Solution 1:

In proto3 the extend keyword has been replaced. From the docs: If you are already familiar with proto2 syntax, the Any type replaces extensions.

syntax = "proto3";

import "google/protobuf/any.proto";

message Foo {
  google.protobuf.Any bar = 1;
}

But beware: Any is essentially a bytes blob. Most of the times it is better to use Oneof:

syntax = "proto3";

message A {
    string a = 1;
}

message B {
    string b = 1;
}

message Foo {
  oneof bar {
    A a = 1;
    B b = 2;
  }
}

Solution 2:

There are a few techniques for implementing polymorphism. I try to cover them all here: Protocol Buffer Polymorphism

My preferred approach uses nested extensions:

message Animal
{
    extensions 100 to max;

    enum Type
    {
        Cat = 1;
        Dog = 2;
    }

    required Type type = 1;
}

message Cat
{
    extend Animal
    {
        required Cat animal = 100; // Unique Animal extension number
    }

    // These fields can use the full number range.
    optional bool declawed = 1;
}

message Dog
{
    extend Animal
    {
        required Dog animal = 101; // Unique Animal extension number
    }

    // These fields can use the full number range.
    optional uint32 bones_buried = 1;
}

Solution 3:

Jon's solution is correct and working but pretty weird (for me). But Protocol Buffers is quite simple, so You can do something like that:

enum Type {
    FOO = 0;
    BAR = 1;
  }

message Foo {
  required Type type = 1;
}

message Bar {
  required Type type = 1;
  required string text = 2;
}

Basically message Bar extends message Foo (from practical side of course). Implementation in Java is simple too:

Bar bar = Bar.newBuilder().setType(Type.BAR).setText("example").build();
byte[] data = bar.toByteArray();

----

Foo foo = Foo.parseFrom(data);
if(foo.getType() == Type.BAR){
   Bar bar = Bar.parseFrom(data);
   System.out.println(bar.getText());
}

I known, it's not an elegant solution, but it's simple and logical.

Solution 4:

Check out Extensions and Nested Extensions for a slightly cleaner way to do this.