glCreateShader

glCreateShader: man3/glCreateShader.xml

glCreateShader creates an empty shader object and returns a non-zero value by which it can be referenced. A shader object is used to maintain the source code strings that define a shader. shaderType indicates the type of shader to be created. Three types of shaders are supported. A shader of type GL_VERTEX_SHADER is a shader that is intended to run on the programmable vertex processor. A shader of type GL_GEOMETRY_SHADER is a shader that is intended to run on the programmable geometry processor. A shader of type GL_FRAGMENT_SHADER is a shader that is intended to run on the programmable fragment processor. When created, a shader object's GL_SHADER_TYPE parameter is set to either GL_VERTEX_SHADER, GL_GEOMETRY_SHADER or GL_FRAGMENT_SHADER, depending on the value of shaderType.

Like buffer and texture objects, the name space for shader 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.