API to generate .rs files

This API does not require protoc command present in $PATH.

extern crate protoc_rust;

fn main() {
    protobuf_codegen_pure::Codegen::new()
        .out_dir("src/protos")
        .inputs(&["protos/a.proto", "protos/b.proto"])
        .include("protos")
        .run()
        .expect("Codegen failed.");
}

And in Cargo.toml:

[build-dependencies]
protobuf-codegen-pure = "2"

It is advisable that protobuf-codegen-pure build-dependecy version be the same as protobuf dependency.

The alternative is to use protoc-rust crate which uses protoc command for parsing (so it uses the same parser Google is using in their protobuf implementations).

Version 2

This is documentation for version 2 of the crate.

In version 3, this API is moved to protobuf-codegen crate.