[![npm](https://img.shields.io/npm/v/grpc.svg)](https://www.npmjs.com/package/grpc) # Node.js gRPC Library ## Status Beta ## PREREQUISITES - `node`: This requires `node` to be installed, version `0.12` or above. If you instead have the `nodejs` executable on Debian, you should install the [`nodejs-legacy`](https://packages.debian.org/sid/nodejs-legacy) package. - **Note:** If you installed `node` via a package manager and the version is still less than `0.12`, try directly installing it from [nodejs.org](https://nodejs.org). ## INSTALLATION Install the gRPC NPM package ```sh npm install grpc ``` ## BUILD FROM SOURCE 1. Clone [the grpc Git Repository](https://github.com/grpc/grpc). 2. Run `npm install` from the repository root. - **Note:** On Windows, this might fail due to [nodejs issue #4932](https://github.com/nodejs/node/issues/4932) in which case, you will see something like the following in `npm install`'s output (towards the very beginning): ``` .. Building the projects in this solution one at a time. To enable parallel build, please add the "/m" switch. WINDOWS_BUILD_WARNING "..\IMPORTANT: Due to https:\github.com\nodejs\node\issues\4932, to build this library on Windows, you must first remove C:\Users\jenkins\.node-gyp\4.4.0\include\node\openssl" ... .. ``` To fix this, you will have to delete the folder `C:\Users\<username>\.node-gyp\<node_version>\include\node\openssl` and retry `npm install` ## TESTING To run the test suite, simply run `npm test` in the install location. ## API This library internally uses [ProtoBuf.js](https://github.com/dcodeIO/ProtoBuf.js), and some structures it exports match those exported by that library If you require this module, you will get an object with the following members ```javascript function load(filename) ``` Takes a filename of a [Protocol Buffer](https://developers.google.com/protocol-buffers/) file, and returns an object representing the structure of the protocol buffer in the following way: - Namespaces become maps from the names of their direct members to those member objects - Service definitions become client constructors for clients for that service. They also have a `service` member that can be used for constructing servers. - Message definitions become Message constructors like those that ProtoBuf.js would create - Enum definitions become Enum objects like those that ProtoBuf.js would create - Anything else becomes the relevant reflection object that ProtoBuf.js would create ```javascript function loadObject(reflectionObject) ``` Returns the same structure that `load` returns, but takes a reflection object from `ProtoBuf.js` instead of a file name. ```javascript function Server([serverOpions]) ``` Constructs a server to which service/implementation pairs can be added. ```javascript status ``` An object mapping status names to status code numbers. ```javascript callError ``` An object mapping call error names to codes. This is primarily useful for tracking down certain kinds of internal errors. ```javascript Credentials ``` An object with factory methods for creating credential objects for clients. ```javascript ServerCredentials ``` An object with factory methods for creating credential objects for servers.