Convert TSV to Protobuf Schema Online

Paste a TSV table below, edit it if you need to, and get Protobuf Schema back. The conversion runs in your browser, so nothing is uploaded, there is no size limit and there is no signup.

From

From a page

The only part of this site that uses a server. The address is sent to it so the page can be fetched, because a browser is not allowed to fetch someone else's page itself. Your own files are never involved.

Nothing here is uploaded. The parsing happens on this page.

Edit

Paste or upload something above and it will appear here.

ToDataMarkupDocumentsCodeSchemasImages

Header rowDetect numbers

The output will appear here once there is a table to convert.

What TSV is

TSV is CSV with tabs instead of commas. Because tabs almost never appear inside a value, quoting is rarely needed and the files are easier to read by eye.

Bioinformatics, log processing, and anyone who has copied a block of cells out of a spreadsheet: the clipboard format is TSV.

What Protobuf Schema is

A proto3 message definition with numbered fields.

gRPC services and anything using Protocol Buffers.

What changes when you convert TSV to Protobuf Schema

The tab is unambiguous, so there is no delimiter to guess. This is the most reliable of the delimited formats to read.

Field numbers are assigned in column order starting at one. Types are inferred from the values.

What carries over from TSV to Protobuf Schema

One property of the TSV has no home in Protocol Buffers, and it is worth knowing which before you convert.

Protocol Buffers wants a type for each column, and TSV does not record one, so each column is typed from what its values look like. A column of digits that should stay text - a zip code, a phone number, a leading-zero id - is the usual thing to check afterwards.

Protocol Buffers has no header row. The column names are repeated as keys on every record instead, which is why the result is bigger on disk than the table it came from.

A worked example

Three rows of staff data, with an identifier that has a leading zero, a value containing a comma, a value containing quotes and one blank cell. Those are the four places formats disagree, so they are the four places to look.

TSV in

id	name	role	started	hours
007	Halima Yusuf	Analyst, data	2024-03-15	38.5
012	Jonah "Jo" Pryce	Engineer	2025-11-02	
104	Wei Chen	Manager	2023-06-30	40

Protobuf Schema out

syntax = "proto3";

message staff {
  int64 id = 1;
  string name = 2;
  string role = 3;
  string started = 4;
  double hours = 5;
}

Questions

How do I convert TSV to Protobuf Schema?

Paste your TSV into the box above or drop the file onto it. Check the table in the grid, then copy or download the Protobuf Schema from the output panel. It takes one step and the data never leaves your browser.

Is there a limit on file size?

No. The work happens on your own machine, so the limit is your machine's memory rather than an upload cap. A file with tens of thousands of rows converts in a second or two.

Is my data uploaded anywhere?

No. The parsing and generating are done by JavaScript running on this page. You can watch the network tab while you convert and see that nothing is sent.