Implementation:Alibaba MNN FlatBuffers Flatc

Knowledge Sources	Alibaba_MNN FlatBuffers
Domains	Serialization, Code_Generation
Last Updated	2026-02-10 12:00 GMT

Overview

Main compiler driver for flatc, orchestrating schema parsing and dispatching to language-specific code generators.

Description

flatc.cpp implements the FlatCompiler class which serves as the entry point for the flatc command-line tool. It parses command-line arguments, invokes the schema parser, and dispatches to the appropriate code generator backend based on the requested target language. The compiler supports output for C++, Java, C#, Go, Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, PHP, Dart, Lua, Lobster, Rust, and JSON.

Usage

Vendored dependency used internally by MNN for model serialization. Not directly imported by end users.

Code Reference

Source Location

• Repository: Alibaba_MNN
• File: 3rd_party/flatbuffers/src/flatc.cpp
• Lines: 1-470

Signature

class FlatCompiler {
public:
    int Go(int argc, const char **argv);
    void ParseAndGenerateFiles(const std::string &filename);
    void Error(const std::string &err, bool usage = true);
};

Import

#include "flatbuffers/flatc.h"

I/O Contract

Input	Output
Command-line arguments + .fbs schema files	Generated source files in the target language(s)
--binary flag + schema + JSON data	Binary FlatBuffer file

Usage Examples

// Typical command-line invocation (not C++ API):
// flatc --cpp --gen-mutable schema.fbs

// Programmatic usage:
FlatCompiler compiler;
const char *argv[] = {"flatc", "--cpp", "schema.fbs"};
int result = compiler.Go(3, argv);

Related Pages

• Environment:Alibaba_MNN_CPU_Build_Environment