GLGETSTRING
Section: Misc. Reference Manual Pages (3G)
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NAME
- return a string describing the current GL connection
C SPECIFICATION
const GLubyte* glGetString(
GLenum name )
PARAMETERS
- name
-
Specifies a symbolic constant, one of
GL_VENDOR, GL_RENDERER, GL_VERSION, or GL_EXTENSIONS.
DESCRIPTION
glGetString returns a pointer to a static string
describing some aspect of the current GL connection.
name can be one of the following:
- GL_VENDOR
-
Returns the company responsible for this GL implementation.
This name does not change from release to release.
- GL_RENDERER
-
Returns the name of the renderer.
This name is typically specific to a particular configuration of a hardware
platform.
It does not change from release to release.
- GL_VERSION
-
Returns a version or release number.
- GL_EXTENSIONS
-
Returns a space-separated list of supported extensions to GL.
Because the GL does not include queries for the performance
characteristics of an implementation, some applications are written to
recognize known platforms and modify their GL usage based on known
performance characteristics of these platforms.
Strings GL_VENDOR and GL_RENDERER together uniquely specify
a platform. They do not change from release to release and should be used
by platform-recognition algorithms.
Some applications want to make use of features that
are not part of the standard GL. These features
may be implemented as extensions to the standard GL.
The GL_EXTENSIONS string is a space-separated
list of supported GL extensions.
(Extension names never contain a space character.)
The GL_VERSION string begins with a version number.
The version number uses one
of these forms:
major_number.minor_number
major_number.minor_number.release_number
Vendor-specific information may follow the version
number. Its depends on the implementation, but
a space always separates the version number and
the vendor-specific information.
All strings are null-terminated.
NOTES
If an error is generated, glGetString returns 0.
The client and server may support different versions or extensions.
glGetString always returns a compatible version number or list of extensions.
The release number always describes the server.
ERRORS
GL_INVALID_ENUM is generated if name is not an accepted value.
GL_INVALID_OPERATION is generated if glGetString
is executed between the execution of glBegin
and the corresponding execution of glEnd.