27.2. The MySQL Plugin Interface
MySQL 5.1 and up supports a plugin API that allows the loading and
unloading of server components at runtime, without restarting the
server. Currently, the plugin API supports creation of full-text
parser plugins. Such a plugin can be used to replace or augment
the built-in full-text parser. For example, a plugin can parse
text into words using rules that differ from those used by the
built-in parser. This can be useful if you need to parse text with
characteristics different from those expected by the built-in
parser.
The plugin interface is intended as the successor to the older
user-defined function (UDF) interface. The plugin interface
eventually will include an API for creating UDFs, and it is
intended this plugin UDF API will replace the older non-plugin UDF
API. After that point, it will be possible for UDFs to be revised
for use as plugin UDFs so that they can take advantage of the
better security and versioning capabilities of the plugin API.
Eventually, support for the older UDF API will be phased out.
The plugin interface requires the plugin table
in the mysql database. This table is created as
part of the MySQL installation process. If you are upgrading from
an older version to MySQL 5.1, you should run the
mysql_upgrade command to create this table. See
Section 5.5.2, “mysql_upgrade — Check Tables for MySQL Upgrade”.
