Protocol Buffers

Protocol Buffers (Protobuf) is Google's language-neutral, platform-neutral mechanism for serializing structured data, delivering payloads significantly smaller and faster than XML or JSON.

Protocol Buffers is a highly efficient data serialization format developed by Google for internal use and later open-sourced. The process is straightforward: you define your data structure—a 'message'—in a `.proto` file using the Interface Definition Language (IDL). The `protoc` compiler then executes, generating native source code (e.g., C++, Java, Python, Go) that includes classes with simple accessors and methods for serialization and parsing. This compiled approach ensures compact data storage and fast parsing, making it ideal for high-performance scenarios like inter-server communication, especially when paired with gRPC. It maintains extensibility, allowing you to update the data structure without breaking existing systems.

https://protobuf.dev/