Frugal

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A very fast dynamic Thrift serializer & deserializer without generating code.

Features

Code Generation Free

Traditional Thrift serializer and deserializer are based on generated code which is no longer needed since we can make use of struct field tags.

High Performance

Based on the test cases in frugal/tests, Frugal's performance is 3 to 4 times better than Apache Thrift (TBinaryProtocol).

There may be variations between different test cases. Feel free to share your test cases with us.

go version go1.23.5 linux/amd64

goos: linux
goarch: amd64
pkg: github.com/cloudwego/frugal/tests
cpu: Intel(R) Xeon(R) Gold 5118 CPU @ 2.30GHz

Marshal_ApacheThrift/small-4        	 2825868	     422.0 ns/op	1381.54 MB/s	     112 B/op	       1 allocs/op
Marshal_ApacheThrift/medium-4       	  126256	      9537 ns/op	1836.78 MB/s	     112 B/op	       1 allocs/op
Marshal_ApacheThrift/large-4        	    2757	    413741 ns/op	1072.66 MB/s	   52150 B/op	      67 allocs/op
Marshal_Frugal/small-4              	12832788	     93.39 ns/op	6242.72 MB/s	       0 B/op	       0 allocs/op
Marshal_Frugal/medium-4             	  323967	      3706 ns/op	4726.97 MB/s	       0 B/op	       0 allocs/op
Marshal_Frugal/large-4              	   12500	     96084 ns/op	4618.94 MB/s	       0 B/op	       0 allocs/op

Unmarshal_ApacheThrift/small-4      	 1288263	     923.1 ns/op	 631.60 MB/s	    1232 B/op	       5 allocs/op
Unmarshal_ApacheThrift/medium-4     	   38652	     30080 ns/op	 582.38 MB/s	   44816 B/op	     176 allocs/op
Unmarshal_ApacheThrift/large-4      	    1442	    783341 ns/op	 566.55 MB/s	 1135536 B/op	    4433 allocs/op
Unmarshal_Frugal/small-4            	 4491027	     252.2 ns/op	2311.66 MB/s	     544 B/op	       1 allocs/op
Unmarshal_Frugal/medium-4           	  106743	     10438 ns/op	1678.30 MB/s	   19908 B/op	      57 allocs/op
Unmarshal_Frugal/large-4            	    3896	    266877 ns/op	1662.95 MB/s	  510888 B/op	    1460 allocs/op

What can you do with Frugal ?

Use Frugal as Kitex serializer and deserializer

No more massive serialization and deserialization code, leads to a more tidy project. No more meaningless diff of generated code in code review.

Serialized and Deserialize struct generated by Thriftgo

If you have a Thrift file, and all you need is using Frugal to do serialization and deserialization. You can use thriftgo to generate Go struct, then you can use Frugal.

Serialization and deserialization on a customized Go struct

If you don't want any Thrift files, and you want serialize or deserialize a customized Go struct. You can add some struct field tag to the Go struct, then you can use Frugal.

Usage

Using with Kitex

1. Update Kitex to v0.4.2 or higher version

go get github.com/cloudwego/kitex@latest

2. Generate code with -thrift frugal_tag option

Example:

kitex -thrift frugal_tag -service a.b.c my.thrift

If you don't need codec code, you can use -thrift template=slim option.

kitex -thrift frugal_tag,template=slim -service a.b.c my.thrift

3. Init clients and servers with WithPayloadCodec(thrift.NewThriftFrugalCodec()) option

Client example:

package client

import (
    "context"

    "example.com/kitex_test/client/kitex_gen/a/b/c/echo"
    "github.com/cloudwego/kitex/client"
    "github.com/cloudwego/kitex/pkg/remote/codec/thrift"
)

func Echo() {
    code := thrift.NewThriftCodecWithConfig(thrift.FastRead | thrift.FastWrite | thrift.FrugalRead | thrift.FrugalWrite)
    cli := echo.MustNewClient("a.b.c", client.WithPayloadCodec(codec))
    ...
}

Server example:

package main

import (
    "log"

    "github.com/cloudwego/kitex/server"
    c "example.com/kitex_test/kitex_gen/a/b/c/echo"
    "github.com/cloudwego/kitex/pkg/remote/codec/thrift"
)

func main() {
    code := thrift.NewThriftCodecWithConfig(thrift.FastRead | thrift.FastWrite | thrift.FrugalRead | thrift.FrugalWrite)
    svr := c.NewServer(new(EchoImpl), server.WithPayloadCodec(code))

    err := svr.Run()
    if err != nil {
        log.Println(err.Error())
    }
}

Using with Thrift IDL

Prepare Thrift file

We can define a struct in Thrift file like below:

my.thrift:

struct MyStruct {
    1: string msg
    2: i64 code
}

Use Thriftgo to generate code

Now we have thrift file, we can use Thriftgo with frugal_tag option to generate Go code.

Example:

thriftgo -r -o thrift -g go:frugal_tag,package_prefix=example.com/kitex_test/thrift my.thrift

If you don't need codec code, you can use template=slim option

thriftgo -r -o thrift -g go:frugal_tag,template=slim,package_prefix=example.com/kitex_test/thrift my.thrift

Use Frugal to serialize or deserialize

Now we can use Frugal to serialize or deserialize the struct defined in thrift file.

Example:

package main

import (
    "github.com/cloudwego/frugal"

    "example.com/kitex_test/thrift"
)

func main() {
    ms := &thrift.MyStruct{
        Msg: "my message",
        Code: 1024,
    }
    ...
    buf := make([]byte, frugal.EncodedSize(ms))
    frugal.EncodeObject(buf, nil, ms)
    ...
    got := &thrift.MyStruct{}
    frugal.DecodeObject(buf, got)
    ...
}

Serialization and deserialization on a customized Go struct

Define a Go struct

We can define a struct like this:

type MyStruct struct {
    Msg     string
    Code    int64
    Numbers []int64 
}

Add Frugal tag to struct fields

Frugal tag is like frugal:"1,default,string", 1 is field ID, default is field requiredness, string is field type. Field ID and requiredness is always required, but field type is only required for list, set and enum.

You can add Frugal tag to MyStruct like below:

type MyStruct struct {
    Msg     string  `frugal:"1,default"`
    Code    int64   `frugal:"2,default"`
    Numbers []int64 `frugal:"3,default,list<i64>"`
}

All types example:

type MyEnum int64

type Example struct {
 MyOptBool         *bool            `frugal:"1,optional"`
 MyReqBool         bool             `frugal:"2,required"`
 MyOptByte         *int8            `frugal:"3,optional"`
 MyReqByte         int8             `frugal:"4,required"`
 MyOptI16          *int16           `frugal:"5,optional"`
 MyReqI16          int16            `frugal:"6,required"`
 MyOptI32          *int32           `frugal:"7,optional"`
 MyReqI32          int32            `frugal:"8,required"`
 MyOptI64          *int64           `frugal:"9,optional"`
 MyReqI64          int64            `frugal:"10,required"`
 MyOptString       *string          `frugal:"11,optional"`
 MyReqString       string           `frugal:"12,required"`
 MyOptBinary       []byte           `frugal:"13,optional"`
 MyReqBinary       []byte           `frugal:"14,required"`
 MyOptI64Set       []int64          `frugal:"15,optional,set<i64>"`
 MyReqI64Set       []int64          `frugal:"16,required,set<i64>"`
 MyOptI64List      []int64          `frugal:"17,optional,list<i64>"`
 MyReqI64List      []int64          `frugal:"18,required,list<i64>"`
 MyOptI64StringMap map[int64]string `frugal:"19,optional"`
 MyReqI64StringMap map[int64]string `frugal:"20,required"`
 MyOptEnum         *MyEnum          `frugal:"21,optional,i64"`
 MyReqEnum         *MyEnum          `frugal:"22,optional,i64"`
}

Use Frugal to serialize or deserialize

Example:

package main

import (
    "github.com/cloudwego/frugal"
)

func main() {
    ms := &thrift.MyStruct{
        Msg: "my message",
        Code: 1024,
        Numbers: []int64{0, 1, 2, 3, 4},
    }
    ...
    buf := make([]byte, frugal.EncodedSize(ms))
    frugal.EncodeObject(buf, nil, ms)
    ...
    got := &thrift.MyStruct{}
    frugal.DecodeObject(buf, got)
    ...
}