MySQL Bugs: #58496: Default value of plugin

Bug #58496	Default value of plugin_dir is different on Windows
Submitted:	25 Nov 2010 15:05	Modified:	13 Jan 2011 15:25
Reporter:	Stefan Hinz	Email Updates:
Status:	Closed	Impact on me:	None
Category:	MySQL Server: Documentation	Severity:	S3 (Non-critical)
Version:		OS:	Any
Assigned to:	Paul DuBois	CPU Architecture:	Any

Description:
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/server-system-variables.html#sysvar_plugin_dir says the default value of the plugin_dir variable is /usr/local/mysql/lib/mysql. That's not true on Windows, though, where it's "installation directory + \lib/plugin", for example "C:\mysql51\lib/plugin".

How to repeat:
Look at the URL.

Suggested fix:
Edit mysqldoc/trunk/dynamic-docs/command-optvars/mysqld.xml and add the default value for Windows as well.

"C:\mysql51\lib/plugin" looks like a weird value. It mixes forward and backward slashes.

Surely we don't want to document that? Is this a bug?

The given path C:\mysql51\lib/pugin is actually an install path c:\mysql51 and lib/plugin is, likely, hardcoded  part of the plugin path. If server is installed in default location C:\Program Files\MySQL\MySQL Server 5.1 the default value from show variables for plugin_dir will be C:\Program Files\MySQL\MySQL Server 5.1/lib/plugin.
  The way paths are joined is a lazy dir paths concatenation 'feature' of the server.
  The point is that definition in mysqld.xml states that default value is the same for all platforms and equals /usr/local/mysql/lib/mysql, which does not reflect the reality. And this should be resolved somehow.

See bug http://bugs.mysql.com/bug.php?id=49778 regarding mixing forward and backward slashes.

Thank you for your bug report. This issue has been addressed in the documentation. The updated documentation will appear on our website shortly, and will be included in the next release of the relevant products.

I changed this to indicate that the default is BASEDIR/lib/plugin, which should apply more widely.