why isn't libmysqld dynamically linked, was Re: why isn't mysqle a shared library?

[Ian Monroe]

On Fri, Sep 12, 2008 at 3:41 PM, Ian Monroe <ian@stripped> wrote:
> I sort of assumed that mysqle was a static library so that you could
> easily include it in your application without having a run-time
> dependency on MySQL. But as far as I can tell, mysqle requires a lot
> of various support files just like mysql itself.
>
> So why is it a static library? Is the API not guaranteed to be ABI compliant?
>
> Could it be made a shared library instead? It would be more memory efficient.
>
> Ian
>

It was pointed out to me that 'mysqle' is actually a term we made up
and probably no one here knows what I meant at a glance. So I'll try
this question again. :)

I just enabled MySQL embedded libmysqld support in Amarok and we're
having all sorts of problems since its a static library. Apparently
static libraries are fundamentally not supposed to be linked into
dynamic libraries but thats exactly what we're trying to do. Its
possible to use -DFPIC, -fPIC and such to work around it (which the
mysql library doesn't do by default,
http://bugs.mysql.com/bug.php?id=39288). But really it'd be easier if
libmysqld was a dynamic library.

Why isn't libmysqld a shared library? Could it be made one?

Thanks,
Ian