Basetype

VkFlags

Vulkan bitmasks

A collection of flags is represented by a bitmask using the type VkFlags:

typedef uint32_t VkFlags;

Bitmasks are passed to many commands and structures to compactly represent options, but VkFlags is not used directly in the API. Instead, a Vk*Flags type which is an alias of VkFlags, and whose name matches the corresponding Vk*FlagBits that are valid for that type, is used.

Any Vk*Flags member or parameter used in the API as an input must be a valid combination of bit flags. A valid combination is either zero or the bitwise OR of valid bit flags.

An individual bit flag is valid for a Vk*Flags type if it would be a valid enumerant when used with the equivalent Vk*FlagBits type, where the bits type is obtained by taking the flag type and replacing the trailing Flags with FlagBits. For example, a flag value of type VkColorComponentFlags must contain only bit flags defined by VkColorComponentFlagBits.

Any Vk*Flags member or parameter returned from a query command or otherwise output from Vulkan to the application may contain bit flags undefined: in its corresponding Vk*FlagBits type. An application cannot rely on the state of these unspecified bits.

Only the low-order 31 bits (bit positions zero through 30) are available for use as flag bits.

This restriction is due to poorly defined behavior by C compilers given a C enumerant value of 0x80000000. In some cases adding this enumerant value may increase the size of the underlying Vk*FlagBits type, breaking the ABI.