Instructions for building this repository on Windows, Linux, and MacOS.
The contents of this repository are sourced primarily from the Khronos Vulkan API specification repository. Please visit that repository for information on contributing.
This repository contains the Vulkan header files and the Vulkan API definition (registry) with its related files. This repository does not create libraries or executables.
However, this repository contains CMake build configuration files to "install"
the files from this repository to a specific install directory. For example,
you can install the files to a system directory such as /usr/local
on Linux.
If you are building other Vulkan-related repositories such as Vulkan-Loader, you need to build the install target of this repository and provide the resulting install directory to those repositories.
The install
target installs the following files under the directory
indicated by install_dir:
- install_dir
/include/vulkan
: The header files found in theinclude/vulkan
directory of this repository - install_dir
/share/vulkan/registry
: The registry files found in theregistry
directory of this repository
The uninstall
target can be used to remove the above files from the install
directory.
To create your local git repository:
git clone https://github.com/KhronosGroup/Vulkan-Headers.git
This repository does not depend on any other repositories.
A common convention is to place the build directory in the top directory of
the repository with a name of build
and place the install directory as a
child of the build directory with the name install
. The remainder of these
instructions follow this convention, although you can use any name for these
directories and place them in any location.
- Windows
- Any Personal Computer version supported by Microsoft
- Microsoft Visual Studio
- CMake 3.10.2 is recommended.
- Use the installer option to add CMake to the system PATH
- Git Client Support
- Git for Windows is a popular solution for Windows
- Some IDEs (e.g., Visual Studio, GitHub Desktop) have integrated Git client support
The general approach is to run CMake to generate the Visual Studio project
files. Then either run CMake with the --build
option to build from the
command line or use the Visual Studio IDE to open the generated solution and
work with the solution interactively.
From a "Developer Command Prompt for VS 201x" console:
cd Vulkan-Headers
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
cmake --build . --target install
See below for the details.
From within a "Developer Command Prompt for VS 201x" console, change your current directory to the top of the cloned repository directory, create a build directory and generate the Visual Studio project files:
cd Vulkan-Headers
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
Note: The
..
parameter tellscmake
the location of the top of the repository. If you place your build directory someplace else, you'll need to specify the location of the repository top differently.
The CMake configuration files set the default install directory location to
$CMAKE_BINARY_DIR\install
, which is a child of your build directory. In this
example, the install directory becomes the Vulkan-Headers\build\install
directory.
The project installs the header files to
Vulkan-Headers\build\install\include\vulkan
and installs the registry files to
Vulkan-Headers\build\install\share\vulkan\registry
You can change the install directory with the CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX
CMake
variable.
For example:
cd Vulkan-Headers
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/c/Users/dev/install .. # MINGW64 shell
As it starts generating the project files, cmake
responds with something
like:
-- Building for: Visual Studio 14 2015
which is a 32-bit generator.
Since this repository does not compile anything, there is no need to specify a specific generator such as "Visual Studio 14 2015 Win64", so the default generator should suffice.
The above steps create a Windows solution file named Vulkan-Headers.sln
in
the build directory.
At this point, you can build the solution from the command line or open the generated solution with Visual Studio.
While still in the build directory:
cmake --build . --target install
to build the install target.
Build the uninstall
target to remove the files from the install directory.
cmake --build . --target uninstall
Launch Visual Studio and open the "Vulkan-Headers.sln" solution file in the
build directory. Build the INSTALL
target from the Visual Studio solution
explorer.
Build the uninstall
target to remove the files from the install directory.
Note: Since there are only the
INSTALL
anduninstall
projects in the solution, building the solution from the command line may be more efficient than starting Visual Studio for these simple operations.
There are no specific Linux distribution or compiler version requirements for building this repository. The required tools are
- CMake 3.10.2 is recommended.
- git
The general approach is to run CMake to generate make files. Then either run
CMake with the --build
option or make
to build from the command line.
cd Vulkan-Headers
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=install ..
make install
See below for the details.
Change your current directory to the top of the cloned repository directory, create a build directory and generate the make files:
cd Vulkan-Headers
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=install ..
Note: The
..
parameter tellscmake
the location of the top of the repository. If you place yourbuild
directory someplace else, you'll need to specify the location of the repository top differently.
Set the CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX
variable to the directory to serve as the
destination directory for the install
target.
The above cmake
command sets the install directory to
$CMAKE_BINARY_DIR/install
, which is a child of your build
directory. In
this example, the install directory becomes the Vulkan-Headers/build/install
directory.
The make file install target installs the header files to
Vulkan-Headers/build/install/include/vulkan
and installs the registry files to
Vulkan-Headers/build/install/share/vulkan/registry
Note: For Linux, the default value for
CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX
is/usr/local
, which would be used if you do not specifyCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX
. In this case, you may need to usesudo
to install to system directories later when you runmake install
.
Note that after generating the make files, running make
:
make
does nothing, since there are no libraries or executables to build.
To install the header files:
make install
or
cmake --build . --target install
To uninstall the files from the install directories, you can execute:
make uninstall
or
cmake --build . --target uninstall
The instructions for building this repository on MacOS are similar to those for Linux.
CMake 3.10.2 is recommended.