There are project files for Visual Studio and Xcode that should allow you to build the compiler flatc, the samples and the tests out of the box.

Alternatively, the distribution comes with a cmake file that should allow you to build project/make files for any platform. For details on cmake, see http://www.cmake.org. In brief, depending on your platform, use one of e.g.:

cmake -G "Unix Makefiles"
cmake -G "Visual Studio 10"
cmake -G "Xcode"

Then, build as normal for your platform. This should result in a flatc executable, essential for the next steps. Note that to use clang instead of gcc, you may need to set up your environment variables, e.g. CC=/usr/bin/clang CXX=/usr/bin/clang++ cmake -G "Unix Makefiles".

Optionally, run the flattests executable to ensure everything is working correctly on your system. If this fails, please contact us!

Note that you MUST be in the root of the FlatBuffers distribution when you run 'flattests' (and the samples), or it will fail to load its files.

Building should also produce two sample executables, sample_binary and sample_text, see the corresponding .cpp file in the samples directory.

There is an android directory that contains all you need to build the test executable on android (use the included build_apk.sh script, or use ndk_build / adb etc. as usual). Upon running, it will output to the log if tests succeeded or not.

There is usually no runtime to compile, as the code consists of a single header, include/flatbuffers/flatbuffers.h. You should add the include folder to your include paths. If you wish to be able to load schemas and/or parse text into binary buffers at runtime, you additionally need the other headers in include/flatbuffers. You must also compile/link src/idl_parser.cpp (and src/idl_gen_text.cpp if you also want to be able convert binary to text).

For applications on Google Play that integrate this library, usage is tracked. This tracking is done automatically using the embedded version string (flatbuffer_version_string), and helps us continue to optimize it. Aside from consuming a few extra bytes in your application binary, it shouldn't affect your application at all. We use this information to let us know if FlatBuffers is useful and if we should continue to invest in it. Since this is open source, you are free to remove the version string but we would appreciate if you would leave it in.