This is an example project that shows how to set up and use protocol buffers and RPC with Go.

There are three folders under src:

1. counters is where the library code lives, including the generated protoc code.
2. counters_server is the server component
3. counters_client is a CLI for interacting with the server.

To install the base protocol buffers compiler:

cd /tmp
curl https://protobuf.googlecode.com/files/protobuf-2.5.0.tar.bz2 > protobuf-2.5.0.tar.bz2
tar -xf protobuf-2.5.0.tar.bz2
cd protobuf-2.5.0
./configure
make
sudo make install

NOTE: This has only been tested on OSX, but should work with any Unix that has GCC installed.

To install the Go generator for protoc:

go get -v -u github.com/kylelemons/go-rpcgen/protoc-gen-go

And we're done!

Note that you'll have to do this step before this code will build.

protoc --go_out=src/counters counters.proto

It should return silently if nothing bad happened!

Pretty straight forward:

go build counters_client
go build counters_server

If your GOPATH isn't set yet:

export GOPATH=`pwd`

./counters_server

$ ./counters_client inc "Hello, World"
Hello, World: 1

I'd really love to hear your thoughts. How can I make this more idiomatic? Are there better patterns for this or that? Here's how you can help:

1. Fork this repo.
2. Commit any fixes/changes/etc.
3. If you are so compelled, send a pull request.
4. Send me an email, if you want: brad.heller@gmail.com