Incorrect naming convention for fields in .proto files generated by protobuf-net?

Question

I'm just getting started with Google Protocol Buffers and Marc Gravell's awesome protobuf-net program, and one thing I don't understand is the naming convention for the field declarations in a generated .proto file.

Here's what Google is recommending:

"Use underscore_separated_names for field names – for example, song_name." https://developers.google.com/protocol-buffers/docs/style

"Note that method names always use camel-case naming, even if the field name in the .proto file uses lower-case with underscores (as it should)." https://developers.google.com/protocol-buffers/docs/reference/java-generated

"Notice how these accessor methods use camel-case naming, even though the .proto file uses lowercase-with-underscores." https://developers.google.com/protocol-buffers/docs/javatutorial

But when I use the Serializer.GetProto() method in protobuf-net on this:

  [ProtoContract]
  public partial class AuthEntry
  {
     private string _windowsAccount = "";
     private string _machineNames = "*";

     [ProtoMember(1)]
     public string WindowsAccount
     {
        get { return _windowsAccount; }
        set { _windowsAccount = value; }
     }

     [ProtoMember(2)]
     public string MachineNames
     {
        get { return _machineNames; }
        set { _machineNames = value; }
     }
  }

I get this:

message AuthEntry {
   optional string WindowsAccount = 1;
   optional string MachineNames = 2;
}

Instead of this, as I'd expected:

message AuthEntry {
   optional string windows_account = 1;
   optional string machine_names = 2;
}

I'm guessing it's no big deal, but just in case ...

We compile Protocol Buffers into JavaScript using protoc and it is annoying, because the PascalCase properties compiles into "getLowercase" getters and setters, eg. getWindowsaccount, getMachinenames. It's hard to read and we can't use code spell checking. — Juraj Suchár

Marc Gravell Marc Gravell · Accepted Answer · 2013-07-24T15:05:40

The proto generation doesn't attempt to apply those conventions, because then it gets into the arms race of disambiguation, collisions, etc - no to mention the fun of finding word breaks in arbitrary names like CustomerIDReference (ok, that's an unlikely example, but you get the point). If you want to control that yourself - specify the Name property on either ProtoContractAttribute or ProtoMemberAttribute.

Incorrect naming convention for fields in .proto files generated by protobuf-net?

1 Answers