title: Dumping protocol-buffers file to stdout to debug/investigate?
body: <p>I have a <code>.proto</code> file and a <code>pbf</code> (protocol buffers file). Is there anyway I can "dump" the pbf file into some sort of verbose human readable output format? I just want to be able to look inside it and see the data in there.</p>
  
  <p>Ideally I'm looking for an open source cli tool that runs on linux that'll work something like:</p>
  
  <pre><code>commandname spec.proto data.pbf
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Does this exist? I tried <code>cat data.pbf | protoc --decode_raw</code> but I got a message of <code>Failed to parse input.</code> on many files that I am very confident are valid. Would it be easy to write a programme that will do this? If so, how?</p>
  
  <p><em>(I am new to protocol buffers, I'm sorry if this is a silly or nonsensical question)</em></p>