22.5.3. MySQL Connector/C Distribution Contents

MySQL Connector/C 6.1 distributions contain the header, library, and utility files necessary to build MySQL client applications that communicate with MySQL Server using the C API.

Distributions are available in binary and source formats. A binary distribution contains the header, library, and utility components discussed following, compiled and ready for use in writing client programs. A source distribution contains the source files required to produce the same headers, libraries, and utilities included in a binary distribution, but you compile them yourself.

MySQL Connector/C distributions include these components:

A set of .h header files that C applications include at compile time. These files are located in the include directory.
Static and dynamic libraries that C applications link to at link time. These libraries are located in the lib directory. The library names depend on the library type and platform for which a distribution is built:
- On Unix (and Unix-like) sytems, the static library is libmysqlclient.a. The dynamic library is libmysqlclient.so on most Unix systems and libmysqlclient.dylib on Mac OS X.
- On Windows, the static library is mysqlclient.lib and the dynamic library is libmysql.dll. Windows distributions also include libmysql.lib, a static import library needed for using the dynamic library.
  
  Windows distributions also include a set of debug libraries. These have the same names as the nondebug libraries, but are located in the lib/debug library.
Utilities. MySQL Connector/C 6.1 includes the following utilities, located in the bin directory. They are the same as in MySQL Server distributions:
- mysql_config displays flags needed to compile C applications to use MySQL Connector/C. This utility is a shell script and is included only for Unix systems. See Section 4.7.2, "mysql_config — Display Options for Compiling Clients".
- my_print_defaults displays the options that are present in option groups within option files. See Section 4.7.3, "my_print_defaults — Display Options from Option Files".
- perror displays error messages corresponding to error codes. See Section 4.8.1, "perror — Explain Error Codes".

MySQL Connector/C 6.0 distributions are similar to 6.1 distributions, with these exceptions:

Debug libraries, my_print_defaults, and perror are not included.
mysql_config is an executable program that is available on all platforms. However, this version of mysql_config is more limited than the shell script version in the types of information it can display.