[protobuf] Can protocol buffer be partial updated?

[Zangw]

I am new to protobuf and here is my question: Can protocol buffer support 
partial update?

For example, I have such messages:

package model.test;

message Person{
    required int32 id = 1;
    required string name = 2;
    repeated PhoneNumber phone = 3;}
enum PhoneType{
    MOBILE = 0;
    HOME = 1;
    WORK = 2;}

message PhoneNumber{
    required string number = 1;
    optional PhoneType type = 2 [default = HOME];} 

Now the data I have like that:

model::test::Person person;
person.set_id(1);
person.set_name("Jack");

model::test::PhoneNumber* _phone3 = person.add_phone();
_phone3->set_number("123567");
_phone3->set_type(model::test::MOBILE);

model::test::PhoneNumber* _phone4 = person.add_phone();
_phone4->set_number("347890");
_phone4->set_type(model::test::WORK);

The case is that when only work phone number is changed, I have to update 
the whole person object with the following codes.

fstream out("User.txt", ios::out | ios::binary | ios::trunc);
person.SerializePartialToOstream(&out);

But it is not efficient to do that. I want to only update the PhoneNumber, 
Is there any partial update in protolbuf or something like that?

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