MySQL 5.5 Reference Manual
MySQL 5.5 Release Notes
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 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