int
mysql_ping(MYSQL *mysql)
          Checks whether the connection to the server is working. If the
          connection has gone down and auto-reconnect is enabled an
          attempt to reconnect is made. If the connection is down and
          auto-reconnect is disabled,
          mysql_ping() returns an error.
        
          Auto-reconnect is disabled by default. To enable it, call
          mysql_options() with the
          MYSQL_OPT_RECONNECT option (deprecated as
          of MySQL 8.0.34). For details, see
          Section 5.4.54, “mysql_options()”.
        
          mysql_ping() can be used by
          clients that remain idle for a long while, to check whether
          the server has closed the connection and reconnect if
          necessary.
        
          If mysql_ping()) does cause a
          reconnect, there is no explicit indication of it. To determine
          whether a reconnect occurs, call
          mysql_thread_id() to get the
          original connection identifier before calling
          mysql_ping(), then call
          mysql_thread_id() again to see
          whether the identifier has changed.
        
If reconnect occurs, some characteristics of the connection will have been reset. For details about these characteristics, see Section 3.6.8, “Automatic Reconnection Control”.
Zero if the connection to the server is active. Nonzero if an error occurred. A nonzero return does not indicate whether the MySQL server itself is down; the connection might be broken for other reasons such as network problems.
- 
Commands were executed in an improper order. 
- 
The MySQL server has gone away. 
- 
An unknown error occurred.