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FlatBuffers is a cross platform serialization library architected formaximum memory efficiency. It allows you to directly access serialized data without parsing/unpacking it first, while still having great forwards/backwards compatibility.

1. Build the compiler for flatbuffers (flatc)

   Usecmake to create the build files for your platform and then perform the compilation (Linux example).

   cmake -G "Unix Makefiles"make -j

2. Define your flatbuffer schema (.fbs)

   Write theschema to define the data you want to serialize. Seemonster.fbs for an example.

3. Generate code for your language(s)

   Use theflatc compiler to take your schema and generate language-specific code:

   ./flatc --cpp --rust monster.fbs

   Which generatesmonster_generated.h andmonster_generated.rs files.

4. Serialize data

   Use the generated code, as well as theFlatBufferBuilder to construct your serialized buffer. (C++ example)

5. Transmit/store/save Buffer

   Use your serialized buffer however you want. Send it to someone, save it for later, etc...

6. Read the data

   Use the generated accessors to read the data from the serialized buffer.

   It doesn't need to be the same language/schema version, FlatBuffers ensures the data is readable across languages and schema versions. See theRust example reading the data written byC++.

Go to ourlanding page to browse our documentation.

• Windows
• macOS
• Linux
• Android
• And any others with a recent C++ compiler (C++ 11 and newer)

Code generation and runtime libraries for many popular languages.

1. C
2. C++ -snapcraft.io
3. C# -nuget.org
4. Dart -pub.dev
5. Go -go.dev
6. Java -Maven
7. JavaScript -NPM
8. Kotlin
9. Lobster
10. Lua
11. PHP
12. Python -PyPI
13. Rust -crates.io
14. Swift -swiftpackageindex
15. TypeScript -NPM
16. Nim

FlatBuffers does not follow traditional SemVer versioning (seerationale) but rather uses a format of the date of the release.

• FlatBuffers Issues Tracker to submit an issue.
• stackoverflow.com withflatbuffers tag for any questions regarding FlatBuffers.

To contribute to this project, seeCONTRIBUTING.

• Discord Server

Please see ourSecurity Policy for reporting vulnerabilities.

Flatbuffers is licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0. SeeLICENSE for the full license text.