The Specification describes Vulkan commands as functions or procedures using C99 syntax. Language bindings for other languages such as C++ and JavaScript may allow for stricter parameter passing, or object-oriented interfaces.
Vulkan uses the standard C types for the base type of scalar parameters
(e.g. types from stdint.h
), with exceptions described below, or elsewhere
in the text when appropriate:
VkBool32
represents boolean True
and False
values, since C does
not have a sufficiently portable built-in boolean type:
typedef uint32_t VkBool32;
VK_TRUE
represents a boolean True (integer 1) value, and
VK_FALSE
a boolean False (integer 0) value.
All values returned from a Vulkan implementation in a VkBool32
will
be either VK_TRUE
or VK_FALSE
.
Applications must not pass any other values than VK_TRUE
or
VK_FALSE
into a Vulkan implementation where a VkBool32
is
expected.
VkDeviceSize
represents device memory size and offset values:
typedef uint64_t VkDeviceSize;
Commands that create Vulkan objects are of the form vkCreate*
and take
Vk*CreateInfo
structures with the parameters needed to create the
object.
These Vulkan objects are destroyed with commands of the form
vkDestroy*
.
The last in-parameter to each command that creates or destroys a Vulkan
object is pAllocator
.
The pAllocator
parameter can be set to a non-NULL
value such that
allocations for the given object are delegated to an application provided
callback; refer to the Memory Allocation chapter for
further details.
Commands that allocate Vulkan objects owned by pool objects are of the form
vkAllocate*
, and take Vk*AllocateInfo
structures.
These Vulkan objects are freed with commands of the form vkFree*
.
These objects do not take allocators; if host memory is needed, they will
use the allocator that was specified when their parent pool was created.
Commands are recorded into a command buffer by calling API commands of the
form vkCmd*
.
Each such command may have different restrictions on where it can be used:
in a primary and/or secondary command buffer, inside and/or outside a render
pass, and in one or more of the supported queue types.
These restrictions are documented together with the definition of each such
command.
The duration of a Vulkan command refers to the interval between calling the command and its return to the caller.
Information is retrieved from the implementation with commands of the form
vkGet*
and vkEnumerate*
.
Unless otherwise specified for an individual command, the results are invariant; that is, they will remain unchanged when retrieved again by calling the same command with the same parameters, so long as those parameters themselves all remain valid.