Vulkan.c3

Vulkan bindings for C3, auto-generated from the official Vulkan XML specification. Covers Vulkan 1.0 through 1.4 with all platform-compatible extensions included.

• Idiomatic C3 error handling — Vulkan error codes map to C3 faults
• Builder pattern — auto-generated .set*() and .build() methods for Vulkan structs
• Cross-platform — Windows, Linux (X11/Wayland), and macOS

Project structure

vk/                  # Generated + hand-written bindings (this is the library)
  vk.c3              # Types, enums, structs, unions
  commands.c3        # Function declarations and extension loading
  builders.c3        # Auto-generated builder/setter methods
  extra.c3           # Hand-written type aliases (platform types, function pointers)
  helpers.c3         # Convenience wrappers (swapchain, device queries, etc.)
  buffer.c3          # Memory allocator and buffer helpers
parser/              # Bindings generator (reads vk.xml, writes vk/*.c3)
  build.c3           # Main generator logic
  types.c3           # XML parsing types
examples/
  cube/              # 3D rotating cube with camera controls

Quick start

Prerequisites

1. C3 compiler (latest version)
2. Vulkan drivers installed for your GPU

Running the cube example

Linux:

c3c run cube

Windows:

c3c run cube-win

macOS (needs Vulkan SDK rpath):

c3c run cube -z -rpath -z /path/to/VulkanSDK/macOS/lib

Platform setup

Linux — install Vulkan packages for your distro:

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt install libvulkan-dev vulkan-tools vulkan-validationlayers-dev spirv-tools

# Fedora
sudo dnf install vulkan-loader-devel vulkan-tools vulkan-validation-layers-devel spirv-tools

# Arch
sudo pacman -S vulkan-icd-loader vulkan-tools vulkan-validation-layers spirv-tools

Windows — download and install the Vulkan SDK. Make sure VULKAN_SDK is set. The cube-win target includes Windows SDK configuration for cross-compilation from Linux.

macOS — download the Vulkan SDK for macOS and pass the library path when building (see above).

Using the library in your project

Option 1: Download the pre-built library

Download vulkan.c3l from releases, place it in your project (e.g. ./libs/), and add it to your project.json:

{
  "dependency-search-paths": ["./libs"],
  "dependencies": ["vulkan"],
  "linked-libraries": ["vulkan"]
}

Option 2: Build from source

c3c build zip --trust=full

This creates vulkan.c3l in the project root.

Example usage

import vk;

fn void! main() {
    ApplicationInfo info = {
        .pApplicationName = "My App",
        .pEngineName = "My Engine",
        .applicationVersion = vk::@makeApiVersion(0, 1, 0, 0),
        .engineVersion = vk::@makeApiVersion(0, 1, 0, 0),
        .apiVersion = vk::@makeApiVersion(0, 1, 3, 0)
    };

    InstanceCreateInfo instanceInfo = vk::instanceCreateInfo()
        .setApplicationInfo(&info)
        .setEnabledExtensionNames(extensions.array_view());

    vk::Instance instance;
    vk::createInstance(&instanceInfo, null, &instance)!;
}

The builder pattern lets you chain .set*() calls, then call .build() on create-info structs:

vk::Pipeline pipeline = vk::graphicsPipelineCreateInfo()
    .setStages(shader_stages)
    .setLayout(pipeline_layout)
    .setRenderPass(render_pass)
    .build(device)!;

Regenerating bindings

To regenerate the bindings from the latest Vulkan XML specification:

sh build.sh

This downloads vk.xml from the Khronos repository and runs the parser. All extensions compatible with supported platforms (Win32, X11, XCB, Wayland, macOS/Metal, iOS) are included. Extensions referencing undefined types are automatically skipped.

Resources

• Window library (c3w) — windowing dependency used by the examples
• Example game — a larger project using these bindings
• C3 documentation
• Vulkan Tutorial
• Vulkan Specification

License

See LICENSE.