Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
Program binaries are the binary representation of a complete compiled
and linked program. They are useful because they can be saved to the file
system to be reused later, thereby avoiding the cost of online compilation.
You may also use program binaries so that you do not have to distribute
the shader source codes in your implementation.
You can retrieve the program binary using
glGetProgramBinary
after you
have compiled and linked the program successfully.
void
glGetProgramBinary
(GLuint
program,
GLsizei
bufSize,
GLsizei *
length
, GLenum
binaryFormat,
GLvoid *
binary
)
program
handle to the program object
bufSize
the maximum number of bytes that may be written
into the
binary
length
the number of bytes in the binary data
binaryFormat
the vendor-specific binary format token
binary
pointer to the binary data generated by the shader
compiler
After you have retrieved the program binary, you can save it to the file
system or load the program binary back into the implementation using
glProgramBinary
.
void
glProgramBinary
(GLuint
program,
GLenum
binaryFormat,
const GLvoid *
binary,
GLsizei
length
)
program
handle to the program object
binaryFormat
the vendor-specific binary format token
binary
pointer to the binary data generated by the shader
compiler
the number of bytes in the binary data
length
