glCreateProgram
3G

# glCreateProgram

Creates a program object

## C Specification

    		GLuint glCreateProgram
    		void

## Description

`glCreateProgram` creates an empty program object and returns a non-zero value by which it can be referenced. A program object is an object to which shader objects can be attached. This provides a mechanism to specify the shader objects that will be linked to create a program. It also provides a means for checking the compatibility of the shaders that will be used to create a program (for instance, checking the compatibility between a vertex shader and a fragment shader). When no longer needed as part of a program object, shader objects can be detached.

One or more executables are created in a program object by successfully attaching shader objects to it with glAttachShader, successfully compiling the shader objects with glCompileShader, and successfully linking the program object with glLinkProgram. These executables are made part of current state when glUseProgram is called. Program objects can be deleted by calling glDeleteProgram. The memory associated with the program object will be deleted when it is no longer part of current rendering state for any context.

## Notes

`glCreateProgram` is available only if the GL version is 2.0 or greater.

Like display lists and texture objects, the name space for program objects may be shared across a set of contexts, as long as the server sides of the contexts share the same address space. If the name space is shared across contexts, any attached objects and the data associated with those attached objects are shared as well.

Applications are responsible for providing the synchronization across API calls when objects are accessed from different execution threads.

## Errors

This function returns 0 if an error occurs creating the program object.

`GL_INVALID_OPERATION` is generated if `glCreateProgram` is executed between the execution of glBegin and the corresponding execution of glEnd.

## Associated Gets

glGet with the argument `GL_CURRENT_PROGRAM`

glGetActiveAttrib with a valid program object and the index of an active attribute variable

glGetActiveUniform with a valid program object and the index of an active uniform variable

glGetAttachedShaders with a valid program object

glGetAttribLocation with a valid program object and the name of an attribute variable

glGetProgram with a valid program object and the parameter to be queried

glGetProgramInfoLog with a valid program object

glGetUniform with a valid program object and the location of a uniform variable

glGetUniformLocation with a valid program object and the name of a uniform variable

glIsProgram

## See Also

glAttachShader, glBindAttribLocation, glCreateShader, glDeleteProgram, glDetachShader, glLinkProgram, glUniform, glUseProgram, glValidateProgram

## Copyright

Copyright 2003-2005 3Dlabs Inc. Ltd. This material may be distributed subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the Open Publication License, v 1.0, 8 June 1999. http://opencontent.org/openpub/.