Format Exploration¶

Currently, we use the Google Protocol Buffer library and its message definition format for serializing objects at the framework level. The user may use it for its own datatypes, but is not forced to do so by RSB. However, several alternatives exist which we may additionally evaluate. Afterwards, we could promote (at least internally) the use of one of the alternatives or stick to protobuf.

Serialization Formats and Libraries¶

• Protocol Buffers: http://code.google.com/p/protobuf/
• MessagePack: http://msgpack.org/
• ROS Wire format: http://www.ros.org (TODO link to specs?)
• LCMs wire format (TODO link to specs?)
• JSON