Types of gRPC APIs

Explore the four types of gRPC APIs—Unary, Server Streaming, Client Streaming, and Bidirectional Streaming. Understand how each works with practical examples, how data is streamed, and the role of the StreamObserver interface for handling communication between clients and servers. This lesson helps you identify which API type fits different application needs and how to define them in protocol buffers.

We'll cover the following...

gRPC communication styles
Implementation in protocol buffers
Unary
Client streaming
Server streaming
Bidirectional streaming
FTP service example

gRPC communication styles

gRPC provides various streaming options for handling communication between clients and servers. Four types of streaming are available:

Unary: request-response model
Server streaming: The server sends continuous messages to the client.
Client streaming: The client sends continuous messages to the server.
Bidirectional streaming: The client and server send continuous messages to each other.

Depending on the nature of the application and the requirements of data exchange, developers can choose between them to create efficient and interactive systems. In all of these streaming types, a special interface called StreamObserver is used to handle data flows.

RPC and REST communication differs in terms of the service methods. In RPC, service methods are invoked directly using method ...

1.Getting Started

2.Introduction

3.Defining gRPC Services and Messages

4.gRPC Server and Client

5.Creating a CLI Client

6.Types of gRPC Service Methods

7.Unary RPC

8.Client Streaming RPC

9.Testing the Unary and Client Streaming RPCs

10.Server Streaming RPC

11.Bidirectional Streaming RPC

12.Testing the Server and Bidirectional Streaming RPCs

13.Text Editor System: A Hands-On Practice

14.Security in gRPC

15.Appendix

16.Conclusion

Types of gRPC APIs

gRPC communication styles