This is a brain dump of tools and code snippets that come in handy when implementing gRPC services or using protobufs with Go.

Libraries And Utilities

cat <<EOF | xargs go get -u
github.com/golang/protobuf/proto
github.com/golang/protobuf/protoc-gen-go
google.golang.org/grpc
github.com/gogo/protobuf/proto
github.com/gogo/protobuf/jsonpb
github.com/gogo/protobuf/protoc-gen-gogofast
github.com/gogo/protobuf/gogoproto
go.pedge.io/protoeasy/cmd/protoeasy
github.com/mwitkow/go-grpc-middleware
github.com/grpc-ecosystem/go-grpc-prometheus
EOF

Gogoproto

GogoProto is a fork of protobuf with additional goodies such as faster marshalers, utility method generators and best of all, test and benchmark generators for the message definitions.

syntax = "proto3";
package example;

import "gogoproto/gogo.proto";

option (gogoproto.marshaler_all) = true;
option (gogoproto.unmarshaler_all) = true;
option (gogoproto.sizer_all) = true;
option (gogoproto.populate_all) = true;
option (gogoproto.equal_all) = true;
option (gogoproto.testgen_all) = true;
option (gogoproto.benchgen_all) = true;
...

In addition to the above, there are lots of other useful extensions that can be added.

Protoeasy

Protoeasy vastly simplifies the process of compiling protobufs and using protoc plugins such as grpc, grpc-gateway and gogoproto.

Following command generates protobuf, gRPC and gRPC gateway code with Gogoproto:

ROOT_PACKAGE=github.com/charithe/example
PROTO_PACKAGE=proto
protoeasy --gogo --go-import-path=$ROOT_PACKAGE --grpc --grpc-gateway $PROTO_PACKAGE/

Tracing With Interceptors

This snippet uses Stackdrive Trace – which lacks some features to effectively trace all requests. Opentracing and Jaeger seem more promising and a Stackdriver Trace reporter for Opentracing also exists. Unfortuantely, all of these libraries have some missing features/performance issues that need to be addressed.

func SpanFromMetadata(name string, ctx context.Context) (*trace.Span, bool) {
	if md, ok := metadata.FromContext(ctx); ok {
		traceContext, ok := md["x-cloud-trace-context"]
		if ok && len(traceContext) > 0 {
			s := trace.SpanFromHeader(name, traceContext[0])
			return s, true
		}
	}
    
	return traceClient.NewSpan(name), false
}

func GetUnaryServerInterceptor() grpc.UnaryServerInterceptor {
	return func(ctx context.Context, req interface{}, info *grpc.UnaryServerInfo, handler grpc.UnaryHandler) (interface{}, error) {
		methodName := fmt.Sprintf("server:%s", info.FullMethod)
		span, ok := SpanFromMetadata(methodName, ctx)
		if !ok {
			span = trace.NewSpan(methodName)
		}
		newCtx := trace.NewContext(ctx, span)
		result, err := handler(newCtx, req)
		if err != nil {
			span.SetLabel("error", err.Error())
		}
		span.Finish()
		return result, err
	}
}

func GetStreamServerInterceptor() grpc.StreamServerInterceptor {
	return func(srv interface{}, ss grpc.ServerStream, info *grpc.StreamServerInfo, handler grpc.StreamHandler) error {
		methodName := fmt.Sprintf("server:%s", info.FullMethod)
		span, ok := SpanFromMetadata(methodName, ss.Context())
		if !ok {
			span = trace.NewSpan(methodName)
		}
		//TODO Stream context cannot be modified. We should add trace data through the SetHeader method
		err := handler(srv, ss)
		if err != nil {
			span.SetLabel("error", err.Error())
		}
		span.Finish()
		return err
	}
}

func GetUnaryClientInterceptor() grpc.UnaryClientInterceptor {
	return func(ctx context.Context, method string, req, reply interface{}, cc *grpc.ClientConn, invoker grpc.UnaryInvoker, opts ...grpc.CallOption) error {
		methodName := fmt.Sprintf("client:%s", method)
		span := trace.FromContext(ctx).NewChild(methodName)
		err := invoker(ctx, method, req, reply, cc, opts...)
		if err != nil {
			span.SetLabel("error", err.Error())
		}
		span.Finish()
		return err
	}
}

func GetStreamClientInterceptor() grpc.StreamClientInterceptor {
	return func(ctx context.Context, desc *grpc.StreamDesc, cc *grpc.ClientConn, method string, streamer grpc.Streamer, opts ...grpc.CallOption) (grpc.ClientStream, error) {
		methodName := fmt.Sprintf("client:%s", method)
		span := trace.FromContext(ctx).NewChild(methodName)
		cs, err := streamer(ctx, desc, cc, method, opts...)
		if err != nil {
			span.SetLabel("error", err.Error())
		}
		span.Finish()
		return cs, err
	}
}

Chaining Interceptors

go-grpc-middleware allows chaining multiple interceptors – which is quite handy.

s := grpc.NewServer(
		grpc.StreamInterceptor(
			grpc_middleware.ChainStreamServer(
				GetStreamServerInterceptor(),
				grpc_prometheus.StreamServerInterceptor)),
		grpc.UnaryInterceptor(
			grpc_middleware.ChainUnaryServer(
				GetUnaryServerInterceptor(),
				grpc_prometheus.UnaryServerInterceptor)))

Adding Interceptors To Google Cloud Libraries

bigtable.NewClient(context.Background(),
		project,
		instance,
		option.WithGRPCConnectionPool(grpcConnPoolSize),
		option.WithGRPCDialOption(grpc.WithUnaryInterceptor(GetUnaryClientInterceptor())),
		option.WithGRPCDialOption(grpc.WithStreamInterceptor(GetStreamClientInterceptor())))