2003-2004 Silicon Graphics, Inc.
glGetString 3G
glGetString return a string describing the current GL connection

## C Specification

const GLubyte * `glGetString` GLenum name

## Parameters

name

  Specifies a symbolic constant, one of `GL_VENDOR`, `GL_RENDERER`, `GL_VERSION`, or `GL_EXTENSIONS`.

## Description

`glGetString` returns a pointer to a static string describing some aspect of the current GL connection. name can be one of the following:

`GL_VENDOR`

  Returns the company responsible for this GL 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 GL.

Because the GL does not include queries for the performance characteristics of an implementation, some applications are written to recognize known platforms and modify their GL usage based on known performance characteristics of these platforms. Strings `GL_VENDOR` and `GL_RENDERER` together uniquely specify a platform. They do not change from release to release and should be used by platform-recognition algorithms.

Some applications want to make use of features that are not part of the standard GL. These features may be implemented as extensions to the standard GL. The `GL_EXTENSIONS` string is a space-separated list of supported GL extensions. (Extension names never contain a space character.)

The `GL_VERSION` string identifies both the version number and the profile. The form of the string is "OpenGL ES-<profile> <major>.<minor>", where <profile> is either "CM" (Common) or "CL" (Common-Lite), and <major> and <minor> are integers. OpenGL ES 1.0 and OpenGL ES 1.1 will both have <major> of 1 but 0 or 1 for <minor>, respectively.

All strings are null-terminated.

## Notes

If an error is generated, `glGetString` returns `NULL`.

The client and server may support different versions or extensions. `glGetString` always returns a compatible version number or list of extensions. The release number always describes the server.

## Errors

`GL_INVALID_ENUM` is generated if name is not an accepted value.

## Copyright

Copyright 2003-2004 Silicon Graphics, Inc. This document is licensed under the SGI Free Software B License. For details, see http://oss.sgi.com/projects/FreeB/.