[protocol-buffers] Installing Google Protocol Buffers on mac

I would like to install the older version of Google Protocol Buffers (protobuf-2.4.1) on mac using Terminal command line. I tried with brew install protobuf, but the latest version 2.5.0 has been installed. Is it possible to install the older version from terminal.

Thanks

I used macports

sudo port install protobuf-cpp

From https://github.com/paulirish/homebrew-versions-1 . Works for me!

brew install https://raw.githubusercontent.com/paulirish/homebrew-versions-1/master/protobuf241.rb

brew install --devel protobuf

If it tells you "protobuf-2.6.1 already installed": 1. brew uninstall --devel protobuf 2. brew link libtool 3. brew install --devel protobuf

HomeBrew versions has been removed and formulaes have been emptied. Therefore, my advice is to install it manually following the following steps.

For the time being you will need to build and install the Protocol Buffers toolset manually.

1. Download source code: https://github.com/google/protobuf/releases/download/v2.4.1/protobuf-2.4.1.tar.gz

2. tar xvfz protobuf-2.4.1.tar.gz

3. cd protobuf-2.4.1

4. Run ./configure

5. Edit src/google/protobuf/message.cc, add #include at the top of the file

6. Run make command from root of the folder, i.e. protobuf-2.4.1/

7. Run sudo make install

8. Run /usr/local/bin/protoc --version to check the version of protobuf compiler version The terminal output should be:

   Version: libprotoc 2.4.1

There should be better ways but what I did today was:

1. Download from https://github.com/protocolbuffers/protobuf/releases (protoc-3.14.0-osx-x86_64.zip at this moment)

2. Unzip (double click the zip file)

3. Here, I added a symbolic link

ln -s ~/Downloads/protoc-3.14.0-osx-x86_64/bin/protoc /usr/local/bin/protoc

4. Check if works

protoc --version

you can install from official link page provided by google http://google.github.io/proto-lens/installing-protoc.html

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

There is another official way by Google, as mentioned by another user.

Read it fully before trying.

Here are the steps:

Open Terminal and type the following

1. PROTOC_ZIP=protoc-3.7.1-osx-x86_64.zip
2. curl -OL https://github.com/google/protobuf/releases/download/v3.7.1/$PROTOC_ZIP
3. sudo unzip -o $PROTOC_ZIP -d /usr/local bin/protoc
4. rm -f $PROTOC_ZIP

Worked for me.

P.S.
This is for version 3.7.1 in osx only. If you want to install some other version/platform, visit the releases link and check out the details of the latest version, and use those information. Reference

This is not via brew, but the end result is the same.

1. Download the protobuf-2.4.1 from https://protobuf.googlecode.com/files/protobuf-2.4.1.tar.gz
2. Extract the tar.gz file.
3. $cd ~/Downloads/protobuf-2.4.1
4. $./configure
5. $make
6. $make check
7. $sudo make install
8. $which protoc
9. $protoc --version

Steps 4-7 are from the README.txt file from the protobuf tarball.

To install Protocol Buffer (as of today version v3.7.0)

1. Go to this website

2. download the zip file according to your OS (e.g.: protoc-3.7.0-osx-x86_64.zip). This applies also to other OS.

3. Move the executable in protoc-3/bin/protoc to one of your directories in PATH. In Mac I suggest to put it into /usr/local/bin

Now your good to go

(optional) There is also an include file, you can add. This is a snippet of the README.md

If you intend to use the included well known types then don't forget to
copy the contents of the 'include' directory somewhere as well, for example
into '/usr/local/include/'.

Please refer to our official github site for more installation instructions:
https://github.com/protocolbuffers/protobuf

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> >'_x000D_
_x000D_
  return ParseFromZeroCopyStream(&zero_copy_input) && input->eof();_x000D_
_x000D_
                                                           ^_x000D_
_x000D_
/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/../lib/c++/v1/iosfwd:108:28: note: template is declared here_x000D_
_x000D_
    class _LIBCPP_TYPE_VIS basic_istream;_x000D_
_x000D_
                           ^_x000D_
_x000D_
google/protobuf/message.cc:135:67: error: implicit instantiation of undefined template 'std::__1::basic_istream<char, std::__1::char_traits<char> >'_x000D_
_x000D_
  return ParsePartialFromZeroCopyStream(&zero_copy_input) && input->eof();_x000D_
_x000D_
                                                                  ^_x000D_
_x000D_
/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/../lib/c++/v1/iosfwd:108:28: note: template is declared here_x000D_
_x000D_
    class _LIBCPP_TYPE_VIS basic_istream;_x000D_
_x000D_
                           ^_x000D_
_x000D_
google/protobuf/message.cc:175:16: error: implicit instantiation of undefined template 'std::__1::basic_ostream<char, std::__1::char_traits<char> >'_x000D_
_x000D_
  return output->good();_x000D_
_x000D_
               ^_x000D_
_x000D_
/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/../lib/c++/v1/iosfwd:110:28: note: template is declared here_x000D_
_x000D_
    class _LIBCPP_TYPE_VIS basic_ostream;_x000D_
_x000D_
                           ^

(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.

FWIW., the latest version of brew is at protobuf 3.0, and doesn't include any formulae for the older versions. This is somewhat "inconvenient".

While protobuf may be compatible at the wire level, it is absolutely not compatible at the level of generated java classes: you can't use .class files generated with protoc 2.4 with the protobuf-2.5 JAR, etc. etc. This is why updating protobuf versions is such a sensitive topic in the Hadoop stack: it invariably requires coordination across different projects, and is traumatic enough that nobody likes to do it.

For v3 users.

http://google.github.io/proto-lens/installing-protoc.html

PROTOC_ZIP=protoc-3.7.1-osx-x86_64.zip
curl -OL https://github.com/protocolbuffers/protobuf/releases/download/v3.7.1/$PROTOC_ZIP
sudo unzip -o $PROTOC_ZIP -d /usr/local bin/protoc
sudo unzip -o $PROTOC_ZIP -d /usr/local 'include/*'
rm -f $PROTOC_ZIP

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