Any contains an arbitrary serialized protocol buffer message along with a URL that describes the type of the serialized message.

Protobuf library provides support to pack/unpack Any values in the form of utility functions or additional generated methods of the Any type.

Example 1: Pack and unpack a message in C++.

Foo foo = ...;
Any any;
any.PackFrom(foo);
...
if (any.UnpackTo(&foo)) {
...
}

Example 2: Pack and unpack a message in Java.

Foo foo = ...;
Any any = Any.pack(foo);
...
if (any.is(Foo.class)) {
foo = any.unpack(Foo.class);
}
// or ...
if (any.isSameTypeAs(Foo.getDefaultInstance())) {
foo = any.unpack(Foo.getDefaultInstance());
}

Example 3: Pack and unpack a message in Python.

foo = Foo(...)
any = Any()
any.Pack(foo)
...
if any.Is(Foo.DESCRIPTOR):
any.Unpack(foo)
...

Example 4: Pack and unpack a message in Go

 foo := &pb.Foo{...}
any, err := anypb.New(foo)
if err != nil {
...
}
...
foo := &pb.Foo{}
if err := any.UnmarshalTo(foo); err != nil {
...
}

The pack methods provided by protobuf library will by default use 'type.googleapis.com/full.type.name' as the type URL and the unpack methods only use the fully qualified type name after the last '/' in the type URL, for example "foo.bar.com/x/y.z" will yield type name "y.z".

JSON

The JSON representation of an Any value uses the regular representation of the deserialized, embedded message, with an additional field @type which contains the type URL. Example:

package google.profile;
message Person {
string first_name = 1;
string last_name = 2;
}

{
"@type": "type.googleapis.com/google.profile.Person",
"firstName": <string>,
"lastName": <string>
}

If the embedded message type is well-known and has a custom JSON representation, that representation will be embedded adding a field value which holds the custom JSON in addition to the @type field. Example (for message [google.protobuf.Duration][]):

{
"@type": "type.googleapis.com/google.protobuf.Duration",
"value": "1.212s"
}

Generated

from message google.protobuf.Any

Hierarchy

Constructors

  • Parameters

    Returns Any

Properties

typeNameToUrl: any
typeUrl: string

A URL/resource name that uniquely identifies the type of the serialized protocol buffer message. This string must contain at least one "/" character. The last segment of the URL's path must represent the fully qualified name of the type (as in path/google.protobuf.Duration). The name should be in a canonical form (e.g., leading "." is not accepted).

In practice, teams usually precompile into the binary all types that they expect it to use in the context of Any. However, for URLs which use the scheme http, https, or no scheme, one can optionally set up a type server that maps type URLs to message definitions as follows:

  • If no scheme is provided, https is assumed.
  • An HTTP GET on the URL must yield a [google.protobuf.Type][] value in binary format, or produce an error.
  • Applications are allowed to cache lookup results based on the URL, or have them precompiled into a binary to avoid any lookup. Therefore, binary compatibility needs to be preserved on changes to types. (Use versioned type names to manage breaking changes.)

Note: this functionality is not currently available in the official protobuf release, and it is not used for type URLs beginning with type.googleapis.com. As of May 2023, there are no widely used type server implementations and no plans to implement one.

Schemes other than http, https (or the empty scheme) might be used with implementation specific semantics.

Generated

from field: string type_url = 1;

typeUrlToName: any
value: Uint8Array

Must be a valid serialized protocol buffer of the above specified type.

Generated

from field: bytes value = 2;

fields: FieldList
runtime: ProtoRuntime
typeName: "google.protobuf.Any" = "google.protobuf.Any"

Methods

  • Create a deep copy.

    Returns Any

  • Compare with a message of the same type.

    Parameters

    Returns boolean

  • Parse from binary data, merging fields.

    Repeated fields are appended. Map entries are added, overwriting existing keys.

    If a message field is already present, it will be merged with the new data.

    Parameters

    Returns Any

  • Parse a message from a JSON value.

    Parameters

    Returns Any

  • Parse a message from a JSON string.

    Parameters

    Returns Any

  • Retrieve the MessageType of this message - a singleton that represents the protobuf message declaration and provides metadata for reflection- based operations.

    Returns MessageType<Any>

  • Parameters

    Returns boolean

  • Parameters

    Returns void

  • Serialize the message to binary data.

    Parameters

    Returns Uint8Array

  • Override for serialization behavior. This will be invoked when calling JSON.stringify on this message (i.e. JSON.stringify(msg)).

    Note that this will not serialize google.protobuf.Any with a packed message because the protobuf JSON format specifies that it needs to be unpacked, and this is only possible with a type registry to look up the message type. As a result, attempting to serialize a message with this type will throw an Error.

    This method is protected because you should not need to invoke it directly -- instead use JSON.stringify or toJsonString for stringified JSON. Alternatively, if actual JSON is desired, you should use toJson.

    Returns JsonValue

  • Serialize the message to a JSON value, a JavaScript value that can be passed to JSON.stringify().

    Parameters

    Returns JsonValue

  • Serialize the message to a JSON string.

    Parameters

    Returns string

  • Parameters

    Returns boolean

  • Parameters

    Returns boolean

  • Parameters

    Returns Any

  • Parameters

    Returns Any

  • Parameters

    Returns Any

  • Parameters

    Returns Any

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