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 go1.23.6 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         	 3468714	     346.1 ns/op	1684.32 MB/s	       0 B/op	       0 allocs/op
Marshal_ApacheThrift/medium-4        	  128386	      9343 ns/op	1875.07 MB/s	       0 B/op	       0 allocs/op
Marshal_ApacheThrift/large-4         	    7208	    164521 ns/op	1845.68 MB/s	     109 B/op	       0 allocs/op
Marshal_Frugal/small-4               	13032746	     92.45 ns/op	6306.09 MB/s	       0 B/op	       0 allocs/op
Marshal_Frugal/medium-4              	  327564	      3669 ns/op	4774.38 MB/s	       0 B/op	       0 allocs/op
Marshal_Frugal/large-4               	   18751	     64212 ns/op	4728.90 MB/s	       0 B/op	       0 allocs/op

Unmarshal_ApacheThrift/small-4       	 1548732	     774.1 ns/op	 753.15 MB/s	    1120 B/op	       4 allocs/op
Unmarshal_ApacheThrift/medium-4      	   42676	     30665 ns/op	 571.27 MB/s	   44704 B/op	     175 allocs/op
Unmarshal_ApacheThrift/large-4       	    2106	    515642 ns/op	 588.88 MB/s	  775936 B/op	    3030 allocs/op
Unmarshal_Frugal/small-4             	 4963635	     266.2 ns/op	2189.92 MB/s	     544 B/op	       1 allocs/op
Unmarshal_Frugal/medium-4            	   99786	     11321 ns/op	1547.45 MB/s	   19908 B/op	      57 allocs/op
Unmarshal_Frugal/large-4             	    5838	    197987 ns/op	1533.69 MB/s	  349252 B/op	     997 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 and Frugal

go get github.com/cloudwego/kitex@latest
go get github.com/cloudwego/frugal@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 to reduce generated code significantly.

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

Note: Latest thriftgo (>= v0.3.0) generates thrift struct tags that are compatible with Frugal by default, so frugal_tag is optional for structs without list, set or enum fields.

3. Init clients and servers with Frugal codec

Use thrift.NewThriftCodecWithConfig to enable Frugal. Codec type priority: Frugal > FastCodec > Apache Thrift.

Client example:

package main

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

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

Note: Kitex automatically falls back to FastCodec or Apache Thrift for types that don't have frugal struct tags, so it's safe to enable Frugal globally.

Codec type options

Option	Description
thrift.FrugalRead	Use Frugal for deserialization
thrift.FrugalWrite	Use Frugal for serialization
thrift.FrugalReadWrite	Shorthand for FrugalRead | FrugalWrite
thrift.FastRead	Use FastCodec for deserialization
thrift.FastWrite	Use FastCodec for serialization
thrift.EnableSkipDecoder	Required when using Buffered transport (no Framed/TTHeader)

For Framed or TTHeader transport, FrugalRead | FrugalWrite is sufficient. For Buffered (PurePayload) transport, add EnableSkipDecoder:

codec := thrift.NewThriftCodecWithConfig(thrift.FrugalRead | thrift.FrugalWrite | thrift.EnableSkipDecoder)

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 to generate Go code.

Latest thriftgo (>= v0.3.0) generates thrift struct tags that are compatible with Frugal by default. For structs containing list, set or enum fields, add frugal_tag to generate explicit Frugal tags:

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 to reduce generated code:

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)
    ...
}