Third-party tools that need to determine the MySQL version from the MySQL source can read the VERSION file in the top-level source directory. The file lists the pieces of the version separately. For example, if the version is 5.5.8, the file looks like this:

MYSQL_VERSION_MAJOR=5
MYSQL_VERSION_MINOR=5
MYSQL_VERSION_PATCH=8
MYSQL_VERSION_EXTRA=

If the source is not for a General Availablility (GA) release, the MYSQL_VERSION_EXTRA value will be nonempty. For example, the value for a Release Candidate release would look like this:

MYSQL_VERSION_EXTRA=rc

To construct a five-digit number from the version components, use this formula:

MYSQL_VERSION_MAJOR*10000 + MYSQL_VERSION_MINOR*100 + MYSQL_VERSION_PATCH