These two example programs should work without any changes on a Linux or FreeBSD system. For other operating systems, minor changes are needed, mostly with file paths. These examples are designed to give enough details for you to understand the problem, without the clutter that is a necessary part of a real application. The first example is very straightforward. The second example is a little more advanced with some error checking. The first is followed by a command-line entry for compiling the program. The second is followed by a GNUmake file that may be used for compiling instead.

Example 1

test1_libmysqld.c

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdarg.h>
#include "mysql.h"

MYSQL *mysql;
MYSQL_RES *results;
MYSQL_ROW record;

static char *server_options[] = \
       { "mysql_test", "--defaults-file=my.cnf", NULL };
int num_elements = (sizeof(server_options) / sizeof(char *)) - 1;

static char *server_groups[] = { "libmysqld_server",
                                 "libmysqld_client", NULL };

int main(void)
{
   mysql_library_init(num_elements, server_options, server_groups);
   mysql = mysql_init(NULL);
   mysql_options(mysql, MYSQL_READ_DEFAULT_GROUP, "libmysqld_client");
   mysql_options(mysql, MYSQL_OPT_USE_EMBEDDED_CONNECTION, NULL);

   mysql_real_connect(mysql, NULL,NULL,NULL, "database1", 0,NULL,0);

   mysql_query(mysql, "SELECT column1, column2 FROM table1");

   results = mysql_store_result(mysql);

   while((record = mysql_fetch_row(results))) {
      printf("%s - %s \n", record[0], record[1]);
   }

   mysql_free_result(results);
   mysql_close(mysql);
   mysql_library_end();

   return 0;
}

Here is the command line for compiling the above program:

gcc test1_libmysqld.c -o test1_libmysqld -lz \
 `/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql_config --include --libmysqld-libs`

Example 2

To try out the example, create an test2_libmysqld directory at the same level as the MySQL source directory. Save the test2_libmysqld.c source and the GNUmakefile in the directory, and run GNU make from inside the test2_libmysqld directory.

test2_libmysqld.c

/*
 * A simple example client, using the embedded MySQL server library
*/

#include <mysql.h>
#include <stdarg.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

MYSQL *db_connect(const char *dbname);
void db_disconnect(MYSQL *db);
void db_do_query(MYSQL *db, const char *query);

const char *server_groups[] = {
  "test2_libmysqld_SERVER", "embedded", "server", NULL
};

int
main(int argc, char **argv)
{
  MYSQL *one, *two;

  /* mysql_library_init() must be called before any other mysql
   * functions.
   *
   * You can use mysql_library_init(0, NULL, NULL), and it
   * initializes the server using groups = {
   *   "server", "embedded", NULL
   *  }.
   *
   * In your $HOME/.my.cnf file, you probably want to put:

[test2_libmysqld_SERVER]
language = /path/to/source/of/mysql/sql/share/english

   * You could, of course, modify argc and argv before passing
   * them to this function.  Or you could create new ones in any
   * way you like.  But all of the arguments in argv (except for
   * argv[0], which is the program name) should be valid options
   * for the MySQL server.
   *
   * If you link this client against the normal mysqlclient
   * library, this function is just a stub that does nothing.
   */
  mysql_library_init(argc, argv, (char **)server_groups);

  one = db_connect("test");
  two = db_connect(NULL);

  db_do_query(one, "SHOW TABLE STATUS");
  db_do_query(two, "SHOW DATABASES");

  mysql_close(two);
  mysql_close(one);

  /* This must be called after all other mysql functions */
  mysql_library_end();

  exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}

static void
die(MYSQL *db, char *fmt, ...)
{
  va_list ap;
  va_start(ap, fmt);
  vfprintf(stderr, fmt, ap);
  va_end(ap);
  (void)putc('\n', stderr);
  if (db)
    db_disconnect(db);
  exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}

MYSQL *
db_connect(const char *dbname)
{
  MYSQL *db = mysql_init(NULL);
  if (!db)
    die(db, "mysql_init failed: no memory");
  /*
   * Notice that the client and server use separate group names.
   * This is critical, because the server does not accept the
   * client's options, and vice versa.
   */
  mysql_options(db, MYSQL_READ_DEFAULT_GROUP, "test2_libmysqld_CLIENT");
  if (!mysql_real_connect(db, NULL, NULL, NULL, dbname, 0, NULL, 0))
    die(db, "mysql_real_connect failed: %s", mysql_error(db));

  return db;
}

void
db_disconnect(MYSQL *db)
{
  mysql_close(db);
}

void
db_do_query(MYSQL *db, const char *query)
{
  if (mysql_query(db, query) != 0)
    goto err;

  if (mysql_field_count(db) > 0)
  {
    MYSQL_RES   *res;
    MYSQL_ROW    row, end_row;
    int num_fields;

    if (!(res = mysql_store_result(db)))
      goto err;
    num_fields = mysql_num_fields(res);
    while ((row = mysql_fetch_row(res)))
    {
      (void)fputs(">> ", stdout);
      for (end_row = row + num_fields; row < end_row; ++row)
        (void)printf("%s\t", row ? (char*)*row : "NULL");
      (void)fputc('\n', stdout);
    }
    (void)fputc('\n', stdout);
    mysql_free_result(res);
  }
  else
    (void)printf("Affected rows: %lld\n", mysql_affected_rows(db));

  return;

err:
  die(db, "db_do_query failed: %s [%s]", mysql_error(db), query);
}

GNUmakefile

# This assumes the MySQL software is installed in /usr/local/mysql
inc      := /usr/local/mysql/include/mysql
lib      := /usr/local/mysql/lib

# If you have not installed the MySQL software yet, try this instead
#inc      := $(HOME)/mysql-5.1/include
#lib      := $(HOME)/mysql-5.1/libmysqld

CC       := gcc
CPPFLAGS := -I$(inc) -D_THREAD_SAFE -D_REENTRANT
CFLAGS   := -g -W -Wall
LDFLAGS  := -static
# You can change -lmysqld to -lmysqlclient to use the
# client/server library
LDLIBS    = -L$(lib) -lmysqld -lz -lm -ldl -lcrypt

ifneq (,$(shell grep FreeBSD /COPYRIGHT 2>/dev/null))
# FreeBSD
LDFLAGS += -pthread
else
# Assume Linux
LDLIBS += -lpthread
endif

# This works for simple one-file test programs
sources := $(wildcard *.c)
objects := $(patsubst %c,%o,$(sources))
targets := $(basename $(sources))

all: $(targets)

clean:
        rm -f $(targets) $(objects) *.core