CSV to Protocol Buffers schema API

Code examples

These examples send the sample as multipart/form-data and save the returned bytes unchanged. Set TABLECONVERT_API_KEY in your environment.

curl --fail-with-body --max-time 40 \
  'https://api.tableconvert.com/v2/convert/csv-to-protobuf' \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $TABLECONVERT_API_KEY" \
  --form-string 'data="id","name","status"
"101","Alice","active"
"102","Bob","inactive"' \
  --output 'csv-to-protobuf.protobuf.txt'

import os
from pathlib import Path
import requests

endpoint = "https://api.tableconvert.com/v2/convert/csv-to-protobuf"
headers = {"Authorization": "Bearer " + os.environ["TABLECONVERT_API_KEY"]}
fields = {
    "data": (None, "\"id\",\"name\",\"status\"\r\n\"101\",\"Alice\",\"active\"\r\n\"102\",\"Bob\",\"inactive\""),
}

response = requests.post(endpoint, headers=headers, files=fields, timeout=40)
response.raise_for_status()
Path("csv-to-protobuf.protobuf.txt").write_bytes(response.content)

import { writeFile } from "node:fs/promises";

const form = new FormData();
form.set("data", "\"id\",\"name\",\"status\"\r\n\"101\",\"Alice\",\"active\"\r\n\"102\",\"Bob\",\"inactive\"");

const response = await fetch("https://api.tableconvert.com/v2/convert/csv-to-protobuf", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: { Authorization: "Bearer " + process.env.TABLECONVERT_API_KEY },
  body: form,
  signal: AbortSignal.timeout(40_000),
});
if (!response.ok) {
  throw new Error("HTTP " + response.status + ": " + await response.text());
}
await writeFile("csv-to-protobuf.protobuf.txt", Buffer.from(await response.arrayBuffer()));

Request parameters

Delimited text is parsed into a rectangular table before the requested output is generated. A header row and consistent separators make field mapping explicit.

Send one source: data, file, or url. The examples below use the source mode appropriate for this format.

Output options

Generate a proto3 message definition followed by a JSON representation of row data. The combined text is neither protobuf wire encoding nor a standalone compilable .proto file.

This output format does not expose additional options.

Conversion rules

How the input is read

• Use the first row for column names when the destination creates named records or schema fields.
• Quoted separators, escaped quotes and quoted line breaks are parsed as cell content; inconsistent rows are padded to the table width.
• Normalize mixed separators before conversion; automatic delimiter detection is a heuristic.
• CSV cells become text; a numeric-looking identifier and an actual numeric type are not interchangeable.

How the output is written

• Header names become string fields numbered from one.
• Separate the message definition from the appended JSON before using protoc or a protobuf library.
• Validate field identifiers, reserved words and long-term field numbering before using the draft schema.

When to use this API

Responses and errors

Check the response before retrying. A new HTTP request is a new conversion and may use credits again.

Limits, billing and versions

Local previews accept up to 200 KB. The current API implementation allows one uploaded file up to 50 MiB, limits each multipart text field to 1 MiB, and gives v2 conversion tasks a 30-second deadline. Deployment limits may be stricter. Read the returned error before retrying; some parser or renderer failures return HTTP 500.

Live calls follow the API credit policy. Failed conversions are refunded; a completed conversion is not undone if the download connection later fails.

References and format specifications

Format references explain the underlying syntax. The conversion rules and samples above describe TableConvert’s implementation.

• www.rfc-editor.org
• protobuf.dev