MySQL 5.6 C API Developer Guide
The MySQL C API is a C-based API that client applications written in C can use to communicate with MySQL Server. Client programs refer to C API header files at compile time and link to a C API library file at link time. The library comes in two versions, depending on how the application is intended to communicate with the server:
libmysqlclient
: The client version of the
library, used for applications that communicate over a network
connection as a client of a standalone server process.
libmysqld
: The embedded server version of
the library, used for applications intended to include an
embedded MySQL server within the application itself. The
application communicates with its own private server instance.
Both libraries have the same interface. In terms of C API calls,
an application communicates with a standalone server the same way
it communicates with an embedded server. A given client can be
built to communicate with a standalone or embedded server,
depending on whether it is linked against
libmysqlclient
or libmysqld
at build time.
To obtain the C API header and library files required to build C
API client programs, install a MySQL Server distribution. Server
distributions include both libmysqlclient
and
libmysqld
.
You can install a binary distribution that contains the C API files pre-built, or you can use a source distribution and build the C API files yourself.
The names of the library files to use when linking C API client applications depend on the library type and platform for which a distribution is built:
On Unix (and Unix-like) systems, the static library is
libmysqlclient.a
. The dynamic library is
libmysqlclient.so
on most Unix systems
and libmysqlclient.dylib
on macOS.
For distributions that include embedded server libraries, the
corresponding library names begin with
libmysqld
rather than
libmysqlclient
.
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.
For distributions that include embedded server libraries, the
corresponding library names are
mysqlserver.lib
,
libmysqld.dll
, and
libmysqld.lib
.
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. You
must use the debug libraries when compiling clients built
using the debug C runtime.
On Unix, you may also see libraries that include
_r
in the names. Before MySQL 5.5, these were
built as thread-safe (re-entrant) libraries separately from the
non-_r
libraries. As of 5.5, both libraries are
the same and the _r
names are symbolic links to
the corresponding non-_r
names. There is no
need to use the _r
libraries. For example, if
you use mysql_config to obtain linker flags,
you can use mysql_config --libs in all cases,
even for threaded clients. There is no need to use
mysql_config --libs_r.