Avoid ODR violations with flatbuffers::Verifier. (#8274)

Fix "One Definition Rule" violation when using flatbuffers::Verifier with
FLATBUFFERS_TRACK_VERIFIER_BUFFER_SIZE defined in some compilation units
and not defined in other compilation units.

The fix is to make Verifier a template class, with a boolean template
parameter replacing the "#ifdef" conditionals; to rename it as
VerifierTemplate; and then to use "#ifdef" only for a "using" declaration
that defines the original name Verifier an an alias for the instantiated
template.  In this way, even if FLATBUFFERS_TRACK_VERIFIER_BUFFER_SIZE is
defined in some compilation units and not in others, as long as clients
only reference flatbuffers::Verifier in .cc files, not header files, there
will be no ODR violation, since the only part whose definition varies is the
"using" declaration, which does not have external linkage.

There is still some possibility of clients creating ODR violations
if the client header files (rather than .cc files) reference
flatbuffers::Verifier.  To avoid that, this change also deprecates
FLATBUFFERS_TRACK_VERIFIER_BUFFER_SIZE, and instead introduces
flatbuffers::SizeVerifier as a public name for the template instance with
the boolean parameter set to true, so that clients don't need to define
the macro at all.
1 file changed
tree: dfa7e18772c97215f9762a80fe4f917c50cba00d
  1. .bazelci/
  2. .github/
  3. android/
  4. bazel/
  5. benchmarks/
  6. CMake/
  7. conan/
  8. dart/
  9. docs/
  10. examples/
  11. go/
  12. goldens/
  13. grpc/
  14. include/
  15. java/
  16. js/
  17. kotlin/
  18. lobster/
  19. lua/
  20. mjs/
  21. net/
  22. nim/
  23. php/
  24. python/
  25. reflection/
  26. rust/
  27. samples/
  28. scripts/
  29. snap/
  30. src/
  31. swift/
  32. tests/
  33. ts/
  34. .bazelignore
  35. .bazelrc
  36. .clang-format
  37. .clang-tidy
  38. .editorconfig
  39. .eslintrc.js
  40. .gitattributes
  41. .gitignore
  42. .npmrc
  43. BUILD.bazel
  44. build_defs.bzl
  45. CHANGELOG.md
  46. CMakeLists.txt
  47. composer.json
  48. conanfile.py
  49. CONTRIBUTING.md
  50. FlatBuffers.podspec
  51. Formatters.md
  52. LICENSE
  53. package.json
  54. Package.swift
  55. Package@swift-5.5.swift
  56. pnpm-lock.yaml
  57. README.md
  58. SECURITY.md
  59. swift.swiftformat
  60. tsconfig.json
  61. tsconfig.mjs.json
  62. typescript.bzl
  63. WORKSPACE
README.md

logo FlatBuffers

Build status BuildKite status Fuzzing Status OpenSSF Scorecard Join the chat at https://gitter.im/google/flatbuffers Discord Chat Twitter Follow Twitter Follow

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

Quick Start

  1. Build the compiler for flatbuffers (flatc)

    Use cmake to create the build files for your platform and then perform the compliation (Linux example).

    cmake -G "Unix Makefiles"
    make -j
    
  2. Define your flatbuffer schema (.fbs)

    Write the schema to define the data you want to serialize. See monster.fbs for an example.

  3. Generate code for your language(s)

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

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

    Which generates monster_generated.h and monster_generated.rs files.

  4. Serialize data

    Use the generated code, as well as the FlatBufferBuilder 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 the Rust example reading the data written by C++.

Documentation

Go to our landing page to browse our documentation.

Supported operating systems

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

Supported programming languages

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

Versioning

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

Contribution

To contribute to this project, see CONTRIBUTING.

Community

Security

Please see our Security Policy for reporting vulnerabilities.

Licensing

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