This tutorial provides a basic Python programmer’s introduction to working with gRPC.

By walking through this example you’ll learn how to:

Define a service in a .proto file.
Generate server and client code using the protocol buffer compiler.
Use the Python gRPC API to write a simple client and server for your service.

It assumes that you have read the Overview and are familiar with protocol buffers. Note that the example in this tutorial uses the proto3 version of the protocol buffers language, which is currently in beta release: you can find out more in the proto3 language guide and Python generated code guide, and see the release notes for the new version in the protocol buffers Github repository.

This tutorial provides a basic Python programmer's introduction to working with protocol buffers. By walking through creating a simple example application, it shows you how to

Define message formats in a .proto file.
Use the protocol buffer compiler.
Use the Python protocol buffer API to write and read messages. 

This isn't a comprehensive guide to using protocol buffers in Python. For more detailed reference information, see the Protocol Buffer Language Guide, the Python API Reference, the Python Generated Code Guide, and the Encoding Reference.

This guide describes how to use the protocol buffer language to structure your protocol buffer data, including .proto file syntax and how to generate data access classes from your .proto files. It covers the proto3 version of the protocol buffers language: for information on the older proto2 syntax, see the Proto2 Language Guide.

This is a reference guide – for a step by step example that uses many of the features described in this document, see the tutorial for your chosen language (currently proto2 only; more proto3 documentation is coming soon).