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proto-gen-sysl

Please see Issues for what isn't supported yet

Features

Generate sysl source code from .proto files

Supports using sysls "call" syntax through proto options

Installation

go get -u -v github.com/anz-bank/protoc-gen-sysl

Usage

protoc --sysl_out=. input.proto

or protoc -I <import prefix> --sysl_out=import_prefix=<import prefix> input.proto if you're using the -I flag with protoc

This will help determine where source locations are relative to where the protoc tool was run. s

Examples

See demo directory for examples (including diagram generation)

Intro

proto files are great; easily define your services and data structures and have them auto generated in any language

sysl tries to do this but also tries to do a couple extra things, including interactions between services. Take the following example

Application:
    Endpoint:
        Foo <- thisEndpoint
        return string

Here we describe an Application with one Endpoint, and the Foo <- thisEndpoint specifies that this application calls a dependency. This isn't supported in proto files, as proto files primarily are only for API specifications, not interactions of those APIs.

Example

Example workflow:

+---------------------+ imported  +------------------+
| generated sysl file |---------->| manual sysl file |---------> sysl toolchain (sequence diagrams/sysl-catalog)
+---------------------+           +------------------+
     ^                                     ^ imported
     |    protoc-gen-sysl                  |
     |                            +----------------------+
  +--+-----------+                |other manual/generated|
  | .proto file  |                |sysl files            |
  +--------------+                +----------------------+

Where the manual sysl file can "redefine" applications with the <- syntax and other sysl specifics before being used in the sysl toolchain.

  • Given the proto file:
syntax = "proto3";

package grpc.testing;

message Request {
    string query = 1;
}

message Response {
    string query = 1;
}

service Foo{
    rpc thisEndpoint(Request) returns(Response);
}

service Bar{
    rpc AnotherEndpoint(Request) returns(Response);
}

We can convert this to sysl using: protoc --sysl_out=. example.proto

we have our new sysl file:

Bar:
    @package="grpc_testing"
    AnotherEndpoint(input <: grpc_testing.Request):
        return Response
Foo:
    @package="grpc_testing"
    thisEndpoint(input <: grpc_testing.Request):
        return Response
grpc_testing:
    !type Request:
        query <: string
    !type Response:
        query <: string

Importing manually written sysl

Once the generated sysl exists, one can write more sysl to specify the interactions: manual.sysl:

import generated.sysl # Specify that we import our sysl file we just generated
Bar:
    AnotherEndpoint:
        Foo <- thisEndpoint # Here we specify that we call another service

Now you can generate sequence diagrams with sysl sd -s "Bar <- AnotherEndpoint" manual.sysl or use https://github.com.anz-bank/sysl-catalog for building api catalogs

Mapping from proto to sysl

proto sysl description
package grpc.testing; @package="grpc_testing" package attributes will be attached to any applications
message Request grpc_testing:
!type Request:...
types belong to an application the same name as the package
string query = 1; query <: string:
@rpcid="1" @json_tag="query"
service Foo Foo:
@package="grpc_testing"
The foo application
rpc thisEndpoint(Request) returns(Request){} thisEndpoint(req <: grpc_testing.Request)[~grpc, ~GRPC]:
returns ok <: grpc_testing.Response
Individual endpoints will have the ~grpc + ~GRPC
patterns to differentiate from any other endpoints in sysl
int64 int
int32 int
float<x> float
message !type
enum !enum
repeated type sequence of type
message foo{
message bar
!type foo_bar Messages defined in messages will have names
in the format outername_innername