enums as string value

Hello,

ts-proto offers the options --ts_proto_opt=stringEnums=true which allows for generated enum types to be string-based instead of int-based.

This is useful if you want “only types” and are using a gRPC REST Gateway configured to serialize enums as strings.

Are you willing to support this? It will be very useful in a twirp and gPRC gateway setting

[timostamm]

Give it a try, this already works 😁

The canonical mapping for a protobuf enum is string, and parsers must accept both enum names and integer values.

The canonical mapping deals with edge cases like numeric map keys, infinite numbers, etc. The documentation is sparse, but the conformance tests are not (protobuf-ts passes them). You can be pretty sure that you’ll have perfect JSON interoperability.

[fenos]

@timostamm I gave more and more thoughts around this.

I think you are 100% right here, it all boils down to how enums works in protobuf.

For now I’ll accept the fact that they are annoying 😄 as a workaround I’ve nested my enum to prevent collisions:

message Workflow {
  enum Status {
    UNKNOWN = 0;
    PENDING = 1;
    IN_PROGRESS = 2;
    FINISHED = 3;
    ERRORED = 4;
  }
}