@Override
  public int skip(PositionedByteRange src) {
    CellMessage.Cell.Builder builder = CellMessage.Cell.newBuilder();
    CodedInputStream is = inputStreamFromByteRange(src);
    is.setSizeLimit(src.getLength());
    try {
      builder.mergeFrom(is);
      int consumed = is.getTotalBytesRead();
      src.setPosition(src.getPosition() + consumed);
      return consumed;
    } catch (IOException e) {
      throw new RuntimeException("Error while skipping type.", e);
    }
  }
An example for using protobuf objects with {@link DataType} API.
hbase-examples/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/types/PBCell.java