C Specification

The VkWriteDescriptorSet structure is defined as:

// Provided by VK_VERSION_1_0
typedef struct VkWriteDescriptorSet {
    VkStructureType                  sType;
    const void*                      pNext;
    VkDescriptorSet                  dstSet;
    uint32_t                         dstBinding;
    uint32_t                         dstArrayElement;
    uint32_t                         descriptorCount;
    VkDescriptorType                 descriptorType;
    const VkDescriptorImageInfo*     pImageInfo;
    const VkDescriptorBufferInfo*    pBufferInfo;
    const VkBufferView*              pTexelBufferView;
} VkWriteDescriptorSet;

Members

  • sType is a VkStructureType value identifying this structure.

  • pNext is NULL or a pointer to a structure extending this structure.

  • dstSet is the destination descriptor set to update.

  • dstBinding is the descriptor binding within that set.

  • dstArrayElement is the starting element in that array. If the descriptor binding identified by dstSet and dstBinding has a descriptor type of VK_DESCRIPTOR_TYPE_INLINE_UNIFORM_BLOCK then dstArrayElement specifies the starting byte offset within the binding.

  • descriptorCount is the number of descriptors to update. If the descriptor binding identified by dstSet and dstBinding has a descriptor type of VK_DESCRIPTOR_TYPE_INLINE_UNIFORM_BLOCK, then descriptorCount specifies the number of bytes to update. Otherwise, descriptorCount is one of

  • descriptorType is a VkDescriptorType specifying the type of each descriptor in pImageInfo, pBufferInfo, or pTexelBufferView, as described below. If VkDescriptorSetLayoutBinding for dstSet at dstBinding is not equal to VK_DESCRIPTOR_TYPE_MUTABLE_EXT, descriptorType must be the same type as the descriptorType specified in VkDescriptorSetLayoutBinding for dstSet at dstBinding. The type of the descriptor also controls which array the descriptors are taken from.

  • pImageInfo is a pointer to an array of VkDescriptorImageInfo structures or is ignored, as described below.

  • pBufferInfo is a pointer to an array of VkDescriptorBufferInfo structures or is ignored, as described below.

  • pTexelBufferView is a pointer to an array of VkBufferView handles as described in the Buffer Views section or is ignored, as described below.

Description

Members of pImageInfo, pBufferInfo and pTexelBufferView are only accessed by the implementation when they correspond to a descriptor type being defined - otherwise they are ignored. The members accessed are as follows for each descriptor type:

When updating descriptor sets with a descriptorType of VK_DESCRIPTOR_TYPE_INLINE_UNIFORM_BLOCK, none of the pImageInfo, pBufferInfo, or pTexelBufferView members are accessed, instead the source data of the descriptor update operation is taken from the VkWriteDescriptorSetInlineUniformBlock structure in the pNext chain of VkWriteDescriptorSet. When updating descriptor sets with a descriptorType of VK_DESCRIPTOR_TYPE_ACCELERATION_STRUCTURE_KHR, none of the pImageInfo, pBufferInfo, or pTexelBufferView members are accessed, instead the source data of the descriptor update operation is taken from the VkWriteDescriptorSetAccelerationStructureKHR structure in the pNext chain of VkWriteDescriptorSet. When updating descriptor sets with a descriptorType of VK_DESCRIPTOR_TYPE_ACCELERATION_STRUCTURE_NV, none of the pImageInfo, pBufferInfo, or pTexelBufferView members are accessed, instead the source data of the descriptor update operation is taken from the VkWriteDescriptorSetAccelerationStructureNV structure in the pNext chain of VkWriteDescriptorSet. When updating descriptor sets with a descriptorType of VK_DESCRIPTOR_TYPE_TENSOR_ARM, none of the pImageInfo, pBufferInfo, or pTexelBufferView members are accessed, instead the source data of the descriptor update operation is taken from the instance of VkWriteDescriptorSetTensorARM in the pNext chain of VkWriteDescriptorSet.

If the nullDescriptor feature is enabled, the buffer, acceleration structure, tensor, imageView, or bufferView can be VK_NULL_HANDLE. Loads from a null descriptor return zero values and stores and atomics to a null descriptor are discarded. A null acceleration structure descriptor results in the miss shader being invoked.

If the destination descriptor is a mutable descriptor, the active descriptor type for the destination descriptor becomes descriptorType.

Consecutive Binding Updates

If the dstBinding has fewer than descriptorCount array elements remaining starting from dstArrayElement, then the remainder will be used to update the subsequent binding - dstBinding+1 starting at array element zero. If a binding has a descriptorCount of zero, it is skipped. This behavior applies recursively, with the update affecting consecutive bindings as needed to update all descriptorCount descriptors. Consecutive bindings must have identical VkDescriptorType, VkShaderStageFlags, VkDescriptorBindingFlagBits, and immutable samplers references. In addition, if the VkDescriptorType is VK_DESCRIPTOR_TYPE_MUTABLE_EXT, the supported descriptor types in VkMutableDescriptorTypeCreateInfoEXT must be equally defined.

Note

The same behavior applies to bindings with a descriptor type of VK_DESCRIPTOR_TYPE_INLINE_UNIFORM_BLOCK where descriptorCount specifies the number of bytes to update while dstArrayElement specifies the starting byte offset, thus in this case if the dstBinding has a smaller byte size than the sum of dstArrayElement and descriptorCount, then the remainder will be used to update the subsequent binding - dstBinding+1 starting at offset zero. This falls out as a special case of the above rule.
Valid Usage
Valid Usage (Implicit)

See Also

VK_VERSION_1_0, VkBufferView, VkDescriptorBufferInfo, VkDescriptorImageInfo, VkDescriptorSet, VkDescriptorType, VkPushDescriptorSetInfo, VkStructureType, vkCmdPushDescriptorSet, vkCmdPushDescriptorSet, vkUpdateDescriptorSets

Document Notes

For more information, see the Vulkan Specification.

This page is extracted from the Vulkan Specification. Fixes and changes should be made to the Specification, not directly.

Copyright

Copyright 2014-2026 The Khronos Group Inc.

SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-4.0