Note that there are two different ways to retrieve the OpenGL version: using glGetString and glGetIntegerv. The former can be useful for providing readable output, but may not be as convenient for programmatically checking the version because of the need to parse the string. The string provided by glGetString(GL_VERSION) should always begin with the major and minor versions separated by a dot, however, the minor version could be followed with a vendor-specific build number. Additionally, the rest of the string can contain additional vendor-specific information and may also include information about the selected profile (see the Introduction section of this chapter). It is important to note that the use of glGetIntegerv to query for version information requires OpenGL 3.0 or greater.

The queries for GL_VENDOR and GL_RENDERER provide additional information about the OpenGL driver. The glGetString(GL_VENDOR) call returns the company responsible for the OpenGL implementation. The call to glGetString(GL_RENDERER) provides the name of the renderer, which is specific to a particular hardware platform (such as the ATI Radeon HD 5600 Series). Note that both of these do not vary from release to release, so they can be used to determine the current platform.

Of more importance to us in the context of this book is the call to glGetString(GL_SHADING_LANGUAGE_VERSION), which provides the supported GLSL version number. This string should begin with the major and minor version numbers separated by a period, but similar to the GL_VERSION query, may include other vendor-specific information.