Previously, third-party tools that need to determine the MySQL
version from the MySQL source read the
configure.in file in the top-level source
directory. For example, the AC_INIT line for
MySQL 5.5.7-rc looked like this:
AC_INIT([MySQL Server], [5.5.7-rc], [], [mysql])
Such tools now can read the VERSION file. For
example, if the version is MySQL 5.7.4-m14, the file looks like
this:
MYSQL_VERSION_MAJOR=5
MYSQL_VERSION_MINOR=7
MYSQL_VERSION_PATCH=4
MYSQL_VERSION_EXTRA=-m14
If the source is not for a General Availablility (GA) release, the
MYSQL_VERSION_EXTRA value will be nonempty. For
the example, the value corresponds to Milestone 14.
To construct a five-digit number from the version components, use this formula:
MYSQL_VERSION_MAJOR*10000 + MYSQL_VERSION_MINOR*100 + MYSQL_VERSION_PATCH