grpcio-helpers

gRPC Importer

This package contains helper tools for working with gRPC services in Python. Specifically it provides import hooks for the Python import machinery which lets users import .proto files directly without having to precompile them, and a gRPC server setup wrapper to streamline the process of hosting gRPC services.

Usage

Register import hooks by calling register_import_hook(). This call optionally takes the arguments save_compiled, well_known_protos, and extra_args, which specifies if compiled Python files should be written into the project folder and gives additional arguments to protoc. All arguments are specified per package, for which the closest parent package or __main__'s configuration is used.

After registration the gRPC importer will auto-magically be used to import modules ending in _pb2 or _pb2_grpc if a corresponding .proto file is present in the same package. The importer checks the modified time on the produced Python source files to determine if a fresh compile is needed for every import.

This package also includes a helper function serve() which can be used to start a gRPC server.