## 11.2. Buffer Views

A buffer view represents a contiguous range of a buffer and a specific format to be used to interpret the data. Buffer views are used to enable shaders to access buffer contents interpreted as formatted data. In order to create a valid buffer view, the buffer must have been created with at least one of the following usage flags:

- `VK_BUFFER_USAGE_UNIFORM_TEXEL_BUFFER_BIT`
- `VK_BUFFER_USAGE_STORAGE_TEXEL_BUFFER_BIT`

Buffer views are represented by `VkBufferView` handles:

    VK_DEFINE_NON_DISPATCHABLE_HANDLE(VkBufferView)

To create a buffer view, call:

    VkResult vkCreateBufferView(
        VkDevice                                    device,
        const VkBufferViewCreateInfo*               pCreateInfo,
        const VkAllocationCallbacks*                pAllocator,
        VkBufferView*                               pView);

- `device` is the logical device that creates the buffer view.
- `pCreateInfo` is a pointer to an instance of the `VkBufferViewCreateInfo` structure containing parameters to be used to create the buffer.
- `pAllocator` controls host memory allocation as described in the Memory Allocation chapter.
- `pView` points to a `VkBufferView` handle in which the resulting buffer view object is returned.

The `VkBufferViewCreateInfo` structure is defined as:

    typedef struct VkBufferViewCreateInfo {
        VkStructureType            sType;
        const void*                pNext;
        VkBufferViewCreateFlags    flags;
        VkBuffer                   buffer;
        VkFormat                   format;
        VkDeviceSize               offset;
        VkDeviceSize               range;
    } VkBufferViewCreateInfo;

- `sType` is the type of this structure.
- `pNext` is `NULL` or a pointer to an extension-specific structure.
- `flags` is reserved for future use.
- `buffer` is a `VkBuffer` on which the view will be created.
- `format` is a `VkFormat` describing the format of the data elements in the buffer.
- `offset` is an offset in bytes from the base address of the buffer. Accesses to the buffer view from shaders use addressing that is relative to this starting offset.
- `range` is a size in bytes of the buffer view. If `range` is equal to `VK_WHOLE_SIZE`, the range from `offset` to the end of the buffer is used. If `VK_WHOLE_SIZE` is used and the remaining size of the buffer is not a multiple of the element size of `format`, then the nearest smaller multiple is used.

To destroy a buffer view, call:

    void vkDestroyBufferView(
        VkDevice                                    device,
        VkBufferView                                bufferView,
        const VkAllocationCallbacks*                pAllocator);

- `device` is the logical device that destroys the buffer view.
- `bufferView` is the buffer view to destroy.
- `pAllocator` controls host memory allocation as described in the Memory Allocation chapter.