glGetString

The glGetString function returns a string describing the current OpenGL connection.

const GLubyte * glGetString(
  GLenum name   
);
 

Parameters

name

One of the following symbolic constants:

GL_VENDOR

Returns the company responsible for this OpenGL 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 OpenGL.

Remarks

The glGetString function returns a pointer to a static string describing some aspect of the current OpenGL connection.

Because OpenGL does not include queries for the performance characteristics of an implementation, it is expected that some applications will be written to recognize known platforms and will modify their OpenGL usage based on known performance characteristics of these platforms. The strings GL_VENDOR and GL_RENDERER together uniquely specify a platform, and will not change from release to release. They should be used by such platform recognition algorithms.

The format and contents of the string that glGetString returns depend on the implementation, except that:

• Extension names will not include space characters and will be separated by space characters in the GL_EXTENSIONS string.
• All strings are null-terminated.

If an error is generated, glGetString returns zero.

Error Codes

The following are the error codes generated and their conditions.

QuickInfo

  Windows NT: Use version 3.5 and later.
  Windows: Use Windows 95 and later.
  Windows CE: Unsupported.
  Header: Declared in gl.h.
  Import Library: Link with opengl32.lib.

See Also

glBegin, glEnd