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glAttachShader

Name

glAttachShader — Attaches a shader object to a program object

C Specification

void glAttachShader( GLuint program,
GLuint shader);

Parameters

program

Specifies the program object to which a shader object will be attached.

shader

Specifies the shader object that is to be attached.

Description

In order to create a complete shader program, there must be a way to specify the list of things that will be linked together. Program objects provide this mechanism. Shaders that are to be linked together in a program object must first be attached to that program object. glAttachShader attaches the shader object specified by shader to the program object specified by program. This indicates that shader will be included in link operations that will be performed on program.

All operations that can be performed on a shader object are valid whether or not the shader object is attached to a program object. It is permissible to attach a shader object to a program object before source code has been loaded into the shader object or before the shader object has been compiled. It is permissible to attach multiple shader objects of the same type because each may contain a portion of the complete shader. It is also permissible to attach a shader object to more than one program object. If a shader object is deleted while it is attached to a program object, it will be flagged for deletion, and deletion will not occur until glDetachShader is called to detach it from all program objects to which it is attached.

Errors

GL_INVALID_VALUE is generated if either program or shader is not a value generated by OpenGL.

GL_INVALID_OPERATION is generated if program is not a program object.

GL_INVALID_OPERATION is generated if shader is not a shader object.

GL_INVALID_OPERATION is generated if shader is already attached to program.

Associated Gets

glGetAttachedShaders with the handle of a valid program object

glGetShaderInfoLog

glGetShaderSource

glIsProgram

glIsShader

Examples

Compile a program from a vertex shader and a fragment shader.
GLuint vshader = glCreateShader(GL_VERTEX_SHADER);
glShaderSource(vshader, 1, &vertex_shader_source, NULL); // vertex_shader_source is a GLchar* containing glsl shader source code
glCompileShader(vshader);

GLint vertex_compiled;
glGetShaderiv(vshader, GL_COMPILE_STATUS, &vertex_compiled);
if (vertex_compiled != GL_TRUE)
{
    GLsizei log_length = 0;
    GLchar message[1024];
    glGetShaderInfoLog(vshader, 1024, &log_length, message);
    // Write the error to a log
}

GLuint fshader = glCreateShader(GL_FRAGMENT_SHADER);
glShaderSource(fshader, 1, &fragment_shader_source, NULL); // fragment_shader_source is a GLchar* containing glsl shader source code
glCompileShader(fshader);

GLint fragment_compiled;
glGetShaderiv(fshader, GL_COMPILE_STATUS, &fragment_compiled);
if (fragment_compiled != GL_TRUE)
{
    GLsizei log_length = 0;
    GLchar message[1024];
    glGetShaderInfoLog(fshader, 1024, &log_length, message);
    // Write the error to a log
}

GLuint program = glCreateProgram();

// This step is unnecessary if you use the location specifier in your shader
// e.g. layout (location = 0) in vec3 position;
glBindAttribLocation(program, 0, "position"); // The index passed into glBindAttribLocation is
glBindAttribLocation(program, 1, "texcoord"); // used by glEnableVertexAttribArray. "position"
glBindAttribLocation(program, 2, "normal");   // "texcoord" "normal" and "color" are the names of the
glBindAttribLocation(program, 3, "color");    // respective inputs in your fragment shader.

glAttachShader(program, vshader);
glAttachShader(program, fshader);
glLinkProgram(program);

GLint program_linked;
glGetProgramiv(program, GL_LINK_STATUS, &program_linked);
if (program_linked != GL_TRUE)
{
    GLsizei log_length = 0;
    GLchar message[1024];
    glGetProgramInfoLog(program, 1024, &log_length, message);
    // Write the error to a log
}

Version Support

OpenGL Version
Function / Feature Name 2.0 2.1 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5
glAttachShader ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔
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