Building a C++ shader program class

If you are using C++, it can be very convenient to create classes to encapsulate some of the OpenGL objects. A prime example is the shader program object. In this recipe, we'll look at a design for a C++ class that can be used to manage a shader program.

Getting ready

There's not much to prepare for with this one; you just need a build environment that supports C++. Also, I'll assume that you are using GLM for matrix and vector support; if not, just leave out the functions involving the GLM classes.

How to do it...

First, we'll use a custom exception class for errors that might occur during compilation or linking:

class GLSLProgramException : public std::runtime_error { 
public: 
  GLSLProgramException( const string & msg ) : 
       std::runtime_error(msg) { } 
};

We'll use enum for the various shader types:

namespace GLSLShader { 
  enum GLSLShaderType { 
        VERTEX = GL_VERTEX_SHADER,  
        FRAGMENT = GL_FRAGMENT_SHADER,  
        GEOMETRY = GL_GEOMETRY_SHADER...