It seems like the problem is that the documentation is ahead of the code.
I am a DBA, not a C programmer, though I dabble in server internals. If the file include/mysql.h
in the MySQL Server source files is any indication, the mysql_server_*
functions are the ones you're looking for.
/*
mysql_server_init/end need to be called when using libmysqld or
libmysqlclient (exactly, mysql_server_init() is called by mysql_init() so
you don't need to call it explicitely; but you need to call
mysql_server_end() to free memory). The names are a bit misleading
(mysql_SERVER* to be used when using libmysqlCLIENT). So we add more general
names which suit well whether you're using libmysqld or libmysqlclient. We
intend to promote these aliases over the mysql_server* ones.
*/
#define mysql_library_init mysql_server_init
#define mysql_library_end mysql_server_end
"We intend to promote these aliases over the mysql_server* ones."
They promoted them in the documentation, apparently.
It looks like Bug #65887 was a report of the same problem, that they never really got around to doing anything with.
You might also find MariaDB's implementation of the C API "for MariaDB and MySQL" to be a viable and perhaps more agreeably-licensed alternative.