I think you have misinterpreted my question. Why not just have glGetString's prototype be:
const char* glGetString(GLenum); ? Then (sans the missing const :), your code below would work on *all* platforms, MIPSpro or not, with or without a cast. -tom Patrick Baggett <baggett.patr...@gmail.com> writes: > SGI invented OpenGL and offered it first on their IRIX platform. SGI's > MIPSpro compiler has the "char" datatype as unsigned by default, so the > compiler would likely complain if assigning a GLbyte pointer to an > [unsigned] character pointer. Thus, to do something like > > char* ext = glGetString(GL_VENDOR); > > doesn't require a cast on IRIX, while the same code would require a cast > using other compilers due to the aforementioned problem. > > Patrick > > > On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 1:44 PM, Allen Akin <a...@arden.org> wrote: > > > On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 12:20:54PM -0600, tom fogal wrote: > > | glGetString and gluErrorString, plus maybe some other functions, return > > | GLubyte pointers instead of simply character pointers... > > | What's the rationale here? > > > > I agree, it's odd. I don't remember the rationale, but my best guess is > > that it papered over some compatibility issue with another language > > binding (probably Fortran). I suppose there's a very slight possibility > > that it sprang from a compatibility issue with Cray. > > > > Allen _______________________________________________ mesa-dev mailing list mesa-dev@lists.freedesktop.org http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/mesa-dev
