I am trying to install and use ProtoBuf for Windows .NET C# and I am having problems

Question

I just installed protobuf for Java and that is working great.

I am now trying to install protobuf for .NET 4.0 for C# language.

First of all the protobuf website does not have any install instructions.

I downloaded the latest binaries, which are mostly dlls. Where do I put these dlls?

Also there is a protoc compiler but it only has an output option for C++, not C#. Where is there a C# option?

I created a test file, which is an exact copy of the example on this page and I am getting errors(Error 1 - expected top level statement)?

https://code.google.com/p/protobuf-net/wiki/GettingStarted

    [ProtoContract]
class Person {
    [ProtoMember(1)]
    public int Id {get;set;}
    [ProtoMember(2)]
    public string Name {get;set:}
    [ProtoMember(3)]
    public Address Address {get;set;}
}
[ProtoContract]
class Address {
    [ProtoMember(1)]
    public string Line1 {get;set;}
    [ProtoMember(2)]
    public string Line2 {get;set;}
}

Answer 1

You need to download protobuf project from below link :

Proto Buf C# project Download Link

Install Package manager steps : enter link description here

If Package manager is not available in you VS IDE. then down load from below link : Package manager console download link

To generate protobuf Library for C#: follow below steps :

1) Open downloaded project in Visual studio 2) Goto package manager and type below command

  PM> Install-Package protobuf-net

3) Above command will generate libraries for protobuf. (i) Google.ProtocolBuffers (ii) Google.ProtocolBuffers.Serialization

I hope this helps :)