2.4. Command Syntax and Duration

The Specification describes Vulkan commands as functions or procedures using C99 syntax. Language bindings for other languages such as C++ and JavaScript may allow for stricter parameter passing, or object-oriented interfaces.

Vulkan uses the standard C types for the base type of scalar parameters (e.g. types from stdint.h), with exceptions described below, or elsewhere in the text when appropriate:

VkBool32 represents boolean True and False values, since C does not have a sufficiently portable built-in boolean type:


typedef uint32_t VkBool32;

VkDeviceSize represents device memory size and offset values:


typedef uint64_t VkDeviceSize;

Commands that create Vulkan objects are of the form vkCreate* and take Vk*CreateInfo structures with the parameters needed to create the object. These Vulkan objects are destroyed with commands of the form vkDestroy*.

The last in-parameter to each command that creates or destroys a Vulkan object is pAllocator. The pAllocator parameter can be set to a non-NULL value such that allocations for the given object are delegated to an application provided callback; refer to the Memory Allocation chapter for further details.

Commands that allocate Vulkan objects owned by pool objects are of the form vkAllocate*, and take Vk*AllocateInfo structures. These Vulkan objects are freed with commands of the form vkFree*. These objects do not take allocators; if host memory is needed, they will use the allocator that was specified when their parent pool was created.

Commands are recorded into a command buffer by calling API commands of the form vkCmd*. Each such command may have different restrictions on where it can be used: in a primary and/or secondary command buffer, inside and/or outside a render pass, and in one or more of the supported queue types. These restrictions are documented together with the definition of each such command.

The duration of a Vulkan command refers to the interval between calling the command and its return to the caller.

2.4.1. Lifetime of Retrieved Results

Information is retrieved from the implementation with commands of the form vkGet* and vkEnumerate*.
