1991-2006 Silicon Graphics, Inc.
glDrawElements 3G
glDrawElements render primitives from array data

## C Specification

void `glDrawElements` GLenum mode GLsizei count GLenum type const GLvoid * indices

## Parameters

mode

  Specifies what kind of primitives to render. Symbolic constants `GL_POINTS`, `GL_LINE_STRIP`, `GL_LINE_LOOP`, `GL_LINES`, `GL_TRIANGLE_STRIP`, `GL_TRIANGLE_FAN`, and `GL_TRIANGLES` are accepted.

count

  Specifies the number of elements to be rendered.

type

  Specifies the type of the values in indices. Must be `GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE` or `GL_UNSIGNED_SHORT`.

indices

  Specifies a pointer to the location where the indices are stored.

## Description

`glDrawElements` specifies multiple geometric primitives with very few subroutine calls. Instead of calling a GL function to pass each vertex attribute, you can use glVertexAttribPointer to prespecify separate arrays of vertex attributes and use them to construct a sequence of primitives with a single call to `glDrawElements`.

When `glDrawElements` is called, it uses count sequential elements from an enabled array, starting at indices to construct a sequence of geometric primitives. mode specifies what kind of primitives are constructed and how the array elements construct these primitives. If more than one array is enabled, each is used.

To enable and disable a generic vertex attribute array, call glEnableVertexAttribArray and glDisableVertexAttribArray.

## Notes

If the current program object, as set by glUseProgram, is invalid, rendering results are undefined. However, no error is generated for this case.

## Errors

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

`GL_INVALID_ENUM` is generated if type is not `GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE` or `GL_UNSIGNED_SHORT`.

`GL_INVALID_VALUE` is generated if count is negative.

`GL_INVALID_FRAMEBUFFER_OPERATION` is generated if the currently bound framebuffer is not framebuffer complete (i.e. the return value from glCheckFramebufferStatus is not `GL_FRAMEBUFFER_COMPLETE`).

## See Also

glCheckFramebufferStatus, glDisableVertexAttribArray, glDrawArrays, glEnableVertexAttribArray, glUseProgram, glVertexAttribPointer

## Copyright

Copyright 1991-2006 Silicon Graphics, Inc. This document is licensed under the SGI Free Software B License. For details, see http://oss.sgi.com/projects/FreeB/.