The goal of the Vulkan-Hpp is to provide header only C++ bindings for the Vulkan C API to improve the developers Vulkan experience without introducing CPU runtime cost. It adds features like type safety for enums and bitfields, STL container support, exceptions and simple enumerations.
| Platform | Build Status |
|:--------:|:------------:|
| Linux | [](https://travis-ci.org/KhronosGroup/Vulkan-Hpp) |
## Getting Started
Vulkan-Hpp is part of the LunarG Vulkan SDK since version 1.0.24. Just `#include <vulkan/vulkan.hpp>` and you're ready to use the C++ bindings. If you're using a Vulkan version not yet supported by the Vulkan SDK you can find the latest version of the header [here](https://github.com/KhronosGroup/Vulkan-Hpp/blob/master/vulkan/vulkan.hpp).
### Minimum Requirements
Vulkan-Hpp requires a C++11 capable compiler to compile. The following compilers are known to work:
* Visual Studio >=2015
* GCC >= 4.8.2 (earlier version might work, but are untested)
If the program clang-format is found by CMake, the define CLANG_FORMAT_EXECUTABLE is set accordingly. In that case, the generated vulkan.hpp is formatted using the .clang-format file located in the root directory of this project. Otherwise it's formatted as hard-coded in the generator.
*`vkCreateImage` can be accessed as `vk::createImage`
*`VkImageTiling` can be accessed as `vk::ImageTiling`
*`VkImageCreateInfo` can be accessed as `vk::ImageCreateInfo`
* Enums are mapped to scoped enums to provide compile time type safety. The names have been changed to 'e' + CamelCase with the VK_ prefix and type infix removed. In case the enum type is an extension the extension suffix has been removed from the enum values.
In all other cases the extension suffix has not been removed.
*`VK_IMAGETYPE_2D` is now `vk::ImageType::e2D`.
*`VK_COLOR_SPACE_SRGB_NONLINEAR_KHR` is now `vk::ColorSpaceKHR::eSrgbNonlinear`.
*`VK_STRUCTURE_TYPE_PRESENT_INFO_KHR` is now `vk::StructureType::ePresentInfoKHR`.
* Flag bits are handled like scoped enums with the addition that the `_BIT` suffix has also been removed.
In some cases it might be necessary to move Vulkan-Hpp to a custom namespace. This can be achieved by defining VULKAN_HPP_NAMESPACE before including Vulkan-Hpp.
### Handles
Vulkan-Hpp declares a class for all handles to ensure full type safety and to add support for member functions on handles. A member function has been added to a handle class for each function which accepts the corresponding handle as first parameter. Instead of `vkBindBufferMemory(device, ...)` one can write `device.bindBufferMemory(...)` or `vk::bindBufferMemory(device, ...)`.
### C/C++ Interop for Handles
On 64-bit platforms Vulkan-Hpp supports implicit conversions between C++ Vulkan handles and C Vulkan handles. On 32-bit platforms all non-dispatchable handles are defined as `uint64_t`, thus preventing type-conversion checks at compile time which would catch assignments between incompatible handle types.. Due to that Vulkan-Hpp does not enable implicit conversion for 32-bit platforms by default and it is recommended to use a `static_cast` for the conversion like this: `VkDevice = static_cast<VkDevice>(cppDevice)` to prevent converting some arbitrary int to a handle or vice versa by accident. If you're developing your code on a 64-bit platform, but want compile your code for a 32-bit platform without adding the explicit casts you can define `VULKAN_HPP_TYPESAFE_CONVERSION` to 1 in your build system or before including `vulkan.hpp`. On 64-bit platforms this define is set to 1 by default and can be set to 0 to disable implicit conversions.
### Flags
The scoped enum feature adds type safety to the flags, but also prevents using the flag bits as input for bitwise operations like & and |.
As solution Vulkan-Hpp provides a template class `vk::Flags` which brings the standard operations like `&=`, `|=`, `&` and `|` to our scoped enums. Except for the initialization with 0 this class behaves exactly like a normal bitmask with the improvement that it is impossible to set bits not specified by the corresponding enum by accident. Here are a few examples for the bitmask handling:
```c++
vk::ImageUsage iu1; // initialize a bitmask with no bit set
vk::ImageUsage iu2 = {}; // initialize a bitmask with no bit set
vk::ImageUsage iu3 = vk::ImageUsage::eColorAttachment; // initialize with a single value
vk::ImageUsage iu4 = vk::ImageUsage::eColorAttachment | vk::ImageUsage::eStorage; // or two bits to get a bitmask
PipelineShaderStageCreateInfo ci( {} /* pass a flag without any bits set */, ...);
```
### CreateInfo structs
When constructing a handle in Vulkan one usually has to create some `CreateInfo` struct which describes the new handle. This can result in quite lengthy code as can be seen in the following Vulkan C example:
```c++
VkImageCreateInfo ci;
ci.sType = VK_STRUCTURE_TYPE_IMAGE_CREATE_INFO;
ci.pNext = nullptr;
ci.flags = ...some flags...;
ci.imageType = VK_IMAGE_TYPE_2D;
ci.format = VK_FORMAT_R8G8B8A8_UNORM;
ci.extent = VkExtent3D { width, height, 1 };
ci.mipLevels = 1;
ci.arrayLayers = 1;
ci.samples = VK_SAMPLE_COUNT_1_BIT;
ci.tiling = VK_IMAGE_TILING_OPTIMAL;
ci.usage = VK_IMAGE_USAGE_COLOR_ATTACHMENT_BIT;
ci.sharingMode = VK_SHARING_MODE_EXCLUSIVE;
ci.queueFamilyIndexCount = 0;
ci.pQueueFamilyIndices = 0;
ci.initialLayout = VK_IMAGE_LAYOUT_UNDEFINED;
vkCreateImage(device, &ci, allocator, &image));
```
There are two typical issues Vulkan developers encounter when filling out a CreateInfo struct field by field
* One or more fields are left uninitialized.
*`sType` is incorrect.
Especially the first one is hard to detect.
Vulkan-Hpp provides constructors for all CreateInfo objects which accept one parameter for each member variable. This way the compiler throws a compiler error if a value has been forgotten. In addition to this `sType` is automatically filled with the correct value and `pNext` set to a `nullptr` by default. Here's how the same code looks with a constructor:
The Vulkan API has several places where which require (count,pointer) as two function arguments and C++ has a few containers which map perfectly to this pair. To simplify development the Vulkan-Hpp bindings have replaced those argument pairs with the `ArrayProxy` template class which accepts empty arrays and a single value as well as STL containers `std::initializer_list`, `std::array` and `std::vector` as argument for construction. This way a single generated Vulkan version can accept a variety of inputs without having the combinatoric explosion which would occur when creating a function for each container type.
Here are some code samples on how to use the ArrayProxy:
```c++
vk::CommandBuffer c;
// pass an empty array
c.setScissor(0, nullptr);
// pass a single value. Value is passed as reference
vk::Rect2D scissorRect = { {0, 0}, {640, 480} };
c.setScissor(0, scissorRect);
// pass a temporary value.
c.setScissor(0, { { 0, 0 },{ 640, 480 } });
// generate a std::initializer_list using two rectangles from the stack. This might generate a copy of the rectangles.
Vulkan-Hpp generates references for pointers to structs. This conversion allows passing temporary structs to functions which can result in shorter code. In case the input is optional and thus accepting a null pointer the parameter type will be a `vk::Optional<T> const&` type. This type accepts either a reference to `T` or nullptr as input and thus allows optional temporary structs.
Vulkan allows chaining of structures through the pNext pointer. Vulkan-Hpp has a variadic template class which allows constructing of such structure chains with minimal efforts. In addition to this it checks at compile time if the spec allows the construction of such a `pNext` chain.
Vulkan-Hpp provides a constructor for these chains similar to the CreateInfo objects which accepts a list of all structures part of the chain. The `pNext` field is automatically set to the correct value:
```c++
vk::StructureChain<vk::MemoryAllocateInfo,vk::MemoryDedicatedAllocateInfo> c = {
If one of the structures of a StructureChain is to be removed, maybe due to some optional settings, you can use the function ```vk::StructureChain::unlink<ClassType>()```. It modifies the StructureChain such that the specified structure isn't part of the pNext-chain any more. Note, that the actual memory layout of the StructureChain is not modified by that function.
In case that very same structure has to be re-added to the StructureChain again, use ```vk::StructureChain::relink<ClassType>()```.
Sometimes the user has to pass a preallocated structure chain to query information. For those cases there are two corresponding getter functions. One with a variadic template generating a structure chain of at least two elements to construct the return value:
By default Vulkan-Hpp has exceptions enabled. This means that Vulkan-Hpp checks the return code of each function call which returns a Vk::Result. If Vk::Result is a failure a std::runtime_error will be thrown. Since there is no need to return the error code anymore the C++ bindings can now return the actual desired return value, i.e. a vulkan handle. In those cases ResultValue <SomeType>::type is defined as the returned type.
Some functions allow more than just `vk::Result::eSuccess` to be considered as a success code. For those functions, we always return a `ResultValue<SomeType>`. An example is `acquireNextImage2KHR`, that can be used like this:
```C++
vk::ResultValue<uint32_t> result = device->acquireNextImage2KHR(acquireNextImageInfo);
switch (result.result)
{
case vk::Result::eSuccess:
currentBuffer = result.value;
break;
case vk::Result::eTimeout:
case vk::Result::eNotReady:
case vk::Result::eSuboptimalKHR:
// do something meaningfull
break;
default:
// should not happen, as other return codes are considered to be an error and throw an exception
Note, that there are implicit cast operators in vk::ResultValue, which allow direct assignments of the returned value. That way, any success code is imlicitly ignored. If you want to make sure, you don't miss any such cases and correctly handle or explicitly ignore the success codes, define VULKAN_HPP_DISABLE_IMPLICIT_RESULT_VALUE_CAST before including vulkan.hpp.
As time passes, some vulkan functions might change, such that they start to support more result codes than `vk::Result::eSuccess` as a success code. That logical change would not be visible in the C-API, but in the C++-API, as such a function would now return a `vk::ResultValue<SomeType>` instead of just `SomeType`. If you have VULKAN_HPP_DISABLE_IMPLICIT_RESULT_VALUE_CAST defined, you suddenly get compiler errors, that force you to handle the changed logic.
If exception handling is disabled by defining `VULKAN_HPP_NO_EXCEPTIONS` the type of `ResultValue<SomeType>::type` is a struct holding a `vk::Result` and a `SomeType`. This struct supports unpacking the return values by using `std::tie`.
In case you don’t want to use the `vk::ArrayProxy` and return value transformation you can still call the plain C-style function. Below are three examples showing the 3 ways to use the API:
The first snippet shows how to use the API without exceptions and the return value transformation:
```c++
// No exceptions, no return value transformation
ShaderModuleCreateInfo createInfo(...);
ShaderModule shader1;
Result result = device.createShaderModule(&createInfo, allocator, &shader1);
if (result.result != VK_SUCCESS)
{
handle error code;
cleanup?
return?
}
ShaderModule shader2;
Result result = device.createShaderModule(&createInfo, allocator, &shader2);
if (result != VK_SUCCESS)
{
handle error code;
cleanup?
return?
}
```
The second snippet shows how to use the API using return value transformation, but without exceptions. It’s already a little bit shorter than the original code:
Keep in mind that Vulkan-Hpp does not support RAII style handles and that you have to cleanup your resources in the error handler!
### Enumerations
For the return value transformation, there's one special class of return values which require special handling: Enumerations. For enumerations you usually have to write code like this:
Vulkan-Hpp provides a `vk::UniqueHandle<Type, Deleter>` interface. For each Vulkan handle type `vk::Type` there is a unique handle `vk::UniqueType` which will delete the underlying Vulkan resource upon destruction, e.g. `vk::UniqueBuffer ` is the unique handle for `vk::Buffer`.
For each function which constructs a Vulkan handle of type `vk::Type` Vulkan-Hpp provides a second version which returns a `vk::UniqueType`. E.g. for `vk::Device::createBuffer` there is `vk::Device::createBufferUnique` and for `vk::allocateCommandBuffers` there is `vk::allocateCommandBuffersUnique`.
Note that using `vk::UniqueHandle` comes at a cost since most deleters have to store the `vk::AllocationCallbacks` and parent handle used for construction because they are required for automatic destruction.
### Custom allocators
Sometimes it is required to use `std::vector` with custom allocators. Vulkan-Hpp supports vectors with custom allocators as input for `vk::ArrayProxy` and for functions which do return a vector. For the latter case, add your favorite custom allocator as template argument to the function call like this:
You can as well use a stateful custom allocator by providing it as an argument to those functions. Unfortunately, to make the compilers happy, you also need to explicitly set the Dispatch argument. To get the default there, a simple ´´´{}´´´ would suffice:
All over vulkan.hpp, there are a couple of calls to an assert function. By defining VULKAN_HPP_ASSERT, you can specifiy your own custom assert function to be called instead.
### Extensions / Per Device function pointers
The Vulkan loader exposes only the Vulkan core functions and a limited number of extensions. To use Vulkan-Hpp with extensions it's required to have either a library which provides stubs to all used Vulkan
functions or to tell Vulkan-Hpp to dispatch those functions pointers. Vulkan-Hpp provides a per-function dispatch mechanism by accepting a dispatch class as last parameter in each function call. The dispatch
class must provide a callable type for each used Vulkan function. Vulkan-Hpp provides one implementation, ```DispatchLoaderDynamic```, which fetches all function pointers known to the library.
```c++
// This dispatch class will fetch all function pointers through the passed instance
To use the ```DispatchLoaderDynamic``` as the default dispatcher (means: you don't need to explicitly add it to every function call), you need to ```#define VULKAN_HPP_DISPATCH_LOADER_DYNAMIC 1```, and have the macro ```VULKAN_HPP_DEFAULT_DISPATCH_LOADER_DYNAMIC_STORAGE``` excactly once in your source code to provide storage for that default dispatcher. Then you can use it by the macro ```VULKAN_HPP_DEFAULT_DISPATCHER```, as is shown in the code snippets below.
To ease creating such a ```DispatchLoaderDynamic```, there is a little helper class ```DynamicLoader```.
Creating a full featured ```DispatchLoaderDynamic``` is a two- to three-step process:
1. initialize it with a function pointer of type PFN_vkGetInstanceProcAddr, to get the instance independent function pointers:
When you configure your project using CMake, you can enable SAMPLES_BUILD to add some sample projects to your solution. Most of them are ports from the LunarG samples, but there are some more, like CreateDebugUtilsMessenger, InstanceVersion, PhysicalDeviceDisplayProperties, PhysicalDeviceExtensions, PhysicalDeviceFeatures, PhysicalDeviceGroups, PhysicalDeviceMemoryProperties, PhysicalDeviceProperties, PhysicalDeviceQueueFamilyProperties, and RayTracing. All those samples should just compile and run.
When you configure your project using CMake, you can enable TESTS_BUILD to add some test projects to your solution. Those tests are just compilation tests and are not required to run.
