Get list of proto messages

Question

I'm a newbie to protobufs and I can't seem to get it. I have a proto file like this.

message Address{
       string Home=1;
       State state=2;
       string Name=3;
enum State{
      STATE_UNKNOWN=0;
      STATE_ARCHIVED=1;
}
}

And I've added data to the message that looks like this.

Address{
Home:"Cornfield";
State: STATE_UNKNOWN;
Name:"Corner";
}
Address{
Home:"Ham";
State: STATE_UNKNOWN;
Name:"Hammer";
}

data = Address.getfielddescriptor() The field descriptor method can't return a list of values like data=['Cornfield','Ham']

How would I do this?

Answer 1

For you to be able to use a list you need to define a field as repeated. So somewhere you need to define something like an Address Book where you store all your addresses:

message Address {
  string home = 1;
  State state = 2;
  string name = 3;
 
  enum State {
    STATE_UNKNOWN  = 0;
    STATE_ARCHIVED = 1;
  }
}

// Your address book message
message AddressBook {
  repeated addresses= 1;
}

Next in python you use this as followed:

address_book = AddressBook()
addr = address_book.addresses.add() 
addr.home = "Cornfield"
addr.state = STATE_UNKNOWN
addr.name = "Corner"

# You can also first create an address object and extend the list
addr2 = Address()
addr2.home = "Ham"
addr2.state = STATE_UNKNOWN
addr2.name = "Hammer"
address_book.addresses.extend(addr2)

# You can use the list of addresses like any other list:
# By index: address_book.addresses[0]
# or in a list: for addr in address_book.addresses:

Other methods of extending the address book can be found in the protobuf documentation here.