plug
plug is a minimal plugin system for go based on the amazing
Hashicorp go-plugin system.
It uses the same basic concept of launching the plugin as a subprocess
using the os/exec
package. It then communicates with the plugin process
using IPC and serialized protobufs. Here are a few differences:
- The plugin interface will be generated automatically using a new protobuf
code generator called
protoc-gen-plug
. - Instead of attaching the stdin/stdout streams to the host process it uses them for communication between the plugin and host.
- It uses a custom protocol for communication between the host and plugin, this is much faster but also has fewer bells and whistles. There are many limitations that will probably not be addressed.
If you want a system that is battle tested and well-supported, please use Hashicorp's go-plugin system. If you need something very simple with good performance characteristics, this system might be for you.
Usage
This package uses the new go protobuf implementation google.golang.org/protobuf
,
- Install
protoc-gen-go
(from google.golang.org/protobuf) andprotoc-gen-plug
to your path - Create a protobuf with your service definitions (See
example/example.proto
) - Generate both the go and plug code (See
example/gen.sh
) - Implement a generated plugin interface (See
example/kv/main.go
) - Use the plugin with the generated
Load{Service}
function.
Notes
The plug generator will unwrap the root request and response types from your service rpc definition. If the message types include embedded types, you will be responsible for providing/consuming the protobuf type from the generated interface API.