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Various documentation clarifications.

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Change-Id: Ibc2bd88a636f3b4abf82a7c2722fc1e354dab848
Tested: on Linux.
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Wouter van Oortmerssen
2014-12-08 16:47:00 -08:00
parent 285501f7be
commit 2d9b3ade18
10 changed files with 52 additions and 25 deletions
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@@ -53,7 +53,7 @@ $(document).ready(function(){initNavTree('index.html','');});
<div class="title">FlatBuffers Documentation</div> </div>
</div><!--header-->
<div class="contents">
<div class="textblock"><p>FlatBuffers is an efficient cross platform serialization library for C++, with support for Java and Go. It was created at Google specifically for game development and other performance-critical applications.</p>
<div class="textblock"><p>FlatBuffers is an efficient cross platform serialization library for C++, with support for Java, C# and Go. It was created at Google specifically for game development and other performance-critical applications.</p>
<p>It is available as open source under the Apache license, v2 (see LICENSE.txt).</p>
<h2>Why use FlatBuffers?</h2>
<ul>
@@ -65,7 +65,7 @@ $(document).ready(function(){initNavTree('index.html','');});
<li><p class="startli"><b>Convenient to use</b> - Generated C++ code allows for terse access &amp; construction code. Then there's optional functionality for parsing schemas and JSON-like text representations at runtime efficiently if needed (faster and more memory efficient than other JSON parsers).</p>
<p class="startli">Java and Go code supports object-reuse.</p>
</li>
<li><b>Cross platform C++11/Java/Go code with no dependencies</b> - will work with any recent gcc/clang and VS2010. Comes with build files for the tests &amp; samples (Android .mk files, and cmake for all other platforms).</li>
<li><b>Cross platform C++11/Java/C#/Go code with no dependencies</b> - will work with any recent gcc/clang and VS2010. Comes with build files for the tests &amp; samples (Android .mk files, and cmake for all other platforms).</li>
</ul>
<h3>Why not use Protocol Buffers, or .. ?</h3>
<p>Protocol Buffers is indeed relatively similar to FlatBuffers, with the primary difference being that FlatBuffers does not need a parsing/ unpacking step to a secondary representation before you can access data, often coupled with per-object memory allocation. The code is an order of magnitude bigger, too. Protocol Buffers has neither optional text import/export nor schema language features like unions.</p>
@@ -76,7 +76,7 @@ $(document).ready(function(){initNavTree('index.html','');});
<p>This section is a quick rundown of how to use this system. Subsequent sections provide a more in-depth usage guide.</p>
<ul>
<li>Write a schema file that allows you to define the data structures you may want to serialize. Fields can have a scalar type (ints/floats of all sizes), or they can be a: string; array of any type; reference to yet another object; or, a set of possible objects (unions). Fields are optional and have defaults, so they don't need to be present for every object instance.</li>
<li>Use <code>flatc</code> (the FlatBuffer compiler) to generate a C++ header (or Java/Go classes) with helper classes to access and construct serialized data. This header (say <code>mydata_generated.h</code>) only depends on <code>flatbuffers.h</code>, which defines the core functionality.</li>
<li>Use <code>flatc</code> (the FlatBuffer compiler) to generate a C++ header (or Java/C#/Go classes) with helper classes to access and construct serialized data. This header (say <code>mydata_generated.h</code>) only depends on <code>flatbuffers.h</code>, which defines the core functionality.</li>
<li>Use the <code>FlatBufferBuilder</code> class to construct a flat binary buffer. The generated functions allow you to add objects to this buffer recursively, often as simply as making a single function call.</li>
<li>Store or send your buffer somewhere!</li>
<li>When reading it back, you can obtain the pointer to the root object from the binary buffer, and from there traverse it conveniently in-place with <code>object-&gt;field()</code>.</li>
@@ -87,7 +87,7 @@ $(document).ready(function(){initNavTree('index.html','');});
<li>How to <a href="md__compiler.html">use the compiler</a>.</li>
<li>How to <a href="md__schemas.html">write a schema</a>.</li>
<li>How to <a href="md__cpp_usage.html">use the generated C++ code</a> in your own programs.</li>
<li>How to <a href="md__java_usage.html">use the generated Java code</a> in your own programs.</li>
<li>How to <a href="md__java_usage.html">use the generated Java/C# code</a> in your own programs.</li>
<li>How to <a href="md__go_usage.html">use the generated Go code</a> in your own programs.</li>
<li>Some <a href="md__benchmarks.html">benchmarks</a> showing the advantage of using FlatBuffers.</li>
<li>A <a href="md__white_paper.html">white paper</a> explaining the "why" of FlatBuffers.</li>