- 22.9.1. C API Data Structures
- 22.9.2. C API Function Overview
- 22.9.3. C API Function Descriptions
- 22.9.4. C API Prepared Statements
- 22.9.5. C API Prepared Statement Data Structures
- 22.9.6. C API Prepared Statement Function Overview
- 22.9.7. C API Prepared Statement Function Descriptions
- 22.9.8. C API Threaded Function Descriptions
- 22.9.9. C API Embedded Server Function Descriptions
- 22.9.10. C API Client Plugin Functions
- 22.9.11. Common Questions and Problems When Using the C API
- 22.9.12. Controlling Automatic Reconnection Behavior
- 22.9.13. C API Support for Multiple Statement Execution
- 22.9.14. C API Prepared Statement Problems
- 22.9.15. C API Prepared Statement Handling of Date and Time Values
- 22.9.16. C API Support for Prepared
CALL
Statements - 22.9.17. Building Client Programs
The C API code is distributed with MySQL. It is included in the
mysqlclient
library and enables C programs to
access a database.
Many of the clients in the MySQL source distribution are written in
C. If you are looking for examples that demonstrate how to use the C
API, take a look at these clients. You can find these in the
client
directory in the MySQL source
distribution.
Most of the other client APIs (all except Connector/J and
Connector/NET) use the mysqlclient
library to
communicate with the MySQL server. This means that, for example, you
can take advantage of many of the same environment variables that
are used by other client programs, because they are referenced from
the library. See Chapter 4, MySQL Programs, for a list of these
variables.
The client has a maximum communication buffer size. The size of the buffer that is allocated initially (16KB) is automatically increased up to the maximum size (the maximum is 16MB). Because buffer sizes are increased only as demand warrants, simply increasing the default maximum limit does not in itself cause more resources to be used. This size check is mostly a check for erroneous statements and communication packets.
The communication buffer must be large enough to contain a single
SQL statement (for client-to-server traffic) and one row of returned
data (for server-to-client traffic). Each thread's communication
buffer is dynamically enlarged to handle any query or row up to the
maximum limit. For example, if you have
BLOB
values that contain up to 16MB
of data, you must have a communication buffer limit of at least 16MB
(in both server and client). The client's default maximum is 16MB,
but the default maximum in the server is 1MB. You can increase this
by changing the value of the
max_allowed_packet
parameter when
the server is started. See Section 7.11.2, “Tuning Server Parameters”.
The MySQL server shrinks each communication buffer to
net_buffer_length
bytes after each
query. For clients, the size of the buffer associated with a
connection is not decreased until the connection is closed, at which
time client memory is reclaimed.
For programming with threads, see Section 22.9.17.2, “How to Write a Threaded Client”. For creating a standalone application which includes the "server" and "client" in the same program (and does not communicate with an external MySQL server), see Section 22.8, “libmysqld, the Embedded MySQL Server Library”.
If, after an upgrade, you experience problems with compiled client
programs, such as Commands out of sync
or
unexpected core dumps, you probably have used old header or
library files when compiling your programs. In this case, you
should check the date for your mysql.h
file
and libmysqlclient.a
library to verify that
they are from the new MySQL distribution. If not, recompile your
programs with the new headers and libraries. Recompilation might
also be necessary for programs compiled against the shared client
library if the library major version number has changed (for
example from libmysqlclient.so.15
to
libmysqlclient.so.16
.