This is the Vulkan XML API Registry. It is used to generate the canonical
vulkan_core.h
, the API Asciidoc include files used by the Vulkan
Specification and Reference Pages, and many other types of generated files.
When changes to generated files are needed, follow this workflow. Normally changes are needed only when defining a new extension or core version of the API.
-
Clone the repository and create a branch to work in locally
-
Edit
vk.xml
-
make install test
-
This generates headers in
../gen/include/vulkan
includingvulkan_core.h
and a set of platform-dependent headersvulkan_<platform>.h
.
-
-
(cd .. && make generated)
-
This uses
vk.xml
to generate asciidoc includes and other intermediate files in../gen
for the specification build. There are many ways to invoke the Makefile in..
. This simple recipe only generates includes for the core Vulkan API without any extensions. See../BUILD.adoc
for more.
-
-
Repeat until the headers and/or includes are correct
-
Commit your changes to your local git branch, push to your upstream git server (your personal repository clone of KhronosGroup/Vulkan-Docs on Github, for people outside Khronos; the Khronos member gitlab server, otherwise), and create a pull or merge request against the default branch (currently
main
) or other appropriate target.
For a detailed description of the schema, go to ..
and make registry
,
which generates gen/out/registry.html
.
This document also includes some examples of how to make simple changes in
the API via the XML.
The generator scripts are written in Python 3, using the etree
package for
processing XML.
See ../scripts/README.adoc
for script descriptions.
We strongly recommend using the Khronos-provided Docker image, which has all
needed build tools pre-installed.
See ../BUILD.adoc
for details.
It is possible to construct your own build environment on Linux, Windows, or MacOS by following the recipe in the Dockerfile for the Khronos-provided Docker image.
-
vk.xml
- XML API description. -
registry.rnc
- RelaxNG compact schema for validating XML against the schema. -
Makefile
- generates headers fromvk.xml
(see Makefile Targets below). -
../gen/include/vulkan/vulkan_core.h
- Generated Vulkan non-platform API header. -
../gen/include/vulkan/vulkan_<platform>.h
- Generated Vulkan platform API headers.
-
install
(default target) - regenerate header files in../include/vulkan
. -
test
- make sure../include/vulkan/vulkan_core.h
compiles. Important! Can also be used to test if platform headers compile by specifyingmake TESTDEFS=-DVK_USE_PLATFORM_<PLATFORM>_<AUTHORID> test
. -
validate
- validatevk.xml
against the schema. Requires installingjing
(see Software Dependencies below). Also important! -
clean_dirt
- remove intermediate files. -
clean
- remove generated files.
Generated files can be created in a directory other than the default
../gen/
by setting the Makefile variable GENERATED
to that directory
path.
If you have trouble running the Makefile on your platform, the following
steps will build vulkan_core.h
and test that it compiles:
# Regenerate header from XML
python3 ../scripts/genvk.py -o ../include/vulkan vulkan_core.h
# Verify that the resulting header compiles
gcc -Wall -c -I../include testcore.c
g++ -Wall -c -std=c++98 -I../include testcore.c
g++ -Wall -c -std=c++11 -I../include testcore.c
-
2020-08-25 - Update for new default branch (
main
). -
2019/05/12 - Bring up to date with changes in file paths and build tools.
-
2019/03/10 - Update for script reorganization.
-
2018/05/21 - Don’t generate vulkan_ext.[ch] from the
install
target. Add a new shortcutextloader
target for people still using this code and needing to regenerate it. -
2018/03/13 - Update for new directory structure.
-
2018/03/06 - Update for Vulkan 1.1 release and
master
branch. -
2015/09/18 - Split platform-specific headers into their own vulkan_<platform>.h files, move vulkan.h to vulkan_core.h, and add a new (static) vulkan.h which includes appropriate combinations of the other headers.
-
2015/06/01 - The header that is generated has been improved relative to the first version. Function arguments are indented like the hand-generated header, enumerant BEGIN/END_RANGE enums are named the same, etc. The ordering of declarations is unlike the hand-generated header, and probably always will because it results from a type/enum/function dependency analysis. Some of this can be forced by being more explicit about it, if that is a big deal.
-
2015/06/02 - Per WG signoff, converted hex constant values to decimal (for non-bitmasks) and VK_BIT macros to 'bitpos' attributes in the XML and hex constants in the header. Updated schema to match. Changed <ptype> tag to <type>.
-
2015/06/03 - Moved into new 'vulkan' tree (did not bother preserving history in previous repo). Added semantic knowledge about structs and unions to <type> tags instead of just imbedding C struct definitions. Improved registry.rnc schema a bit.
-
2015/06/07 - Incorporate feedback from F2F including Python 3 and Windows fixes to the scripts. Add documentation to readme.pdf. Fold in multiple merge requests resulting from action items agreed at the F2F, to prepare for everyone moving to XML instead of directly editing the header.
-
2015/06/20 - Add vulkan-docs target and instructions for installing python3 and python-lxml for Windows.
-
2015/08/13 - Bring documentation up to date with Makefile targets (default is now ../include/vulkan.h).
-
2015/09/02 - Update README with required (or known working) versions of toolchain components.
-
2015/09/02 - Move include/vulkan.h to vulkan/vulkan.h so #include "vulkan/vulkan.h" is the normal usage (Bug 14576).
-
2016/02/12 - Update README and remove old files to stage for public release.
-
2016/05/31 - Remove dependency on lxml.
-
2016/07/27 - Update documentation for changes to schema and generator scripts.
-
2016/08/26 - Move README to an asciidoc file and update for the single-branch model. Use 'clean' target to remove generated files in both spec source and registry Makefiles.
-
2017/02/20 - Move registry.txt (schema documentation) to the Vulkan spec source directory and update the README here.