Copyright 2008 Google Inc.
https://developers.google.com/protocol-buffers/
Protobuf Java Lite runtime is separated from the main Java runtime because it's designed/implemented with different constraints. In particular, Java Lite runtime has a much smaller code size which makes it more suitable to be used on Android.
Note that in order to achieve maximum performance and code size, we will NOT guarantee API/ABI stability for Java Lite. If this is not acceptable for your use-case, please use the full Java runtime instead. Note that the latest version of Java Lite is not compatible with the 3.0.0 version.
You can generate Java Lite code for your .proto files:
$ protoc --java_out=lite:${OUTPUT_DIR} path/to/your/proto/file
Note that "optimize_for = LITE_RUNTIME" option in proto file is deprecated and will not have any effect any more.
The latest Java Lite runtime is not yet fully released in any official version. You will need to build from our master's branch in order to use it.
For the older version of Java Lite (v3.0.0), please refer to:
https://github.com/protocolbuffers/protobuf/blob/javalite/java/lite.md