Can I directly pass a Boost ptr_vector list to glBufferData?

Question

I have a data structure like this:

typedef struct vertex_ {
float x;
float y;
float z;
float s;
float t;
}vertex;

Then I add to a list called: boost::ptr_vector<vector> vertices;

Is there a way to use vertices to provide the parameters for glBufferData?

Answer 1

boost::ptr_vector is, underneath the hood, a std::vector<void *>.

Not only is it not possible to use the ptr_vector to directly supply an input to glBufferData (et cetera), but it is a phenomenally bad way to store vertex data in general because of the extremely poor cache locality of the data

If you were to use std::vector<vertex> vertices; instead, you could pass the address of the first element of the vector to functions like glBufferData easily.