12.2.3 Adding a New Native Function

The procedure for adding a new native function is described here. Note that you cannot add native functions to a binary distribution because the procedure involves modifying MySQL source code. You must compile MySQL yourself from a source distribution. Also note that if you migrate to another version of MySQL (for example, when a new version is released), you will need to repeat the procedure with the new version.

To add a new native MySQL function, follow these steps:

1. Add one line to `lex.h' that defines the function name in the sql_functions[] array.
2. If the function prototype is simple (just takes zero, one, two or three arguments), you should in lex.h specify SYM(FUNC_ARG#) (where # is the number of arguments) as the second argument in the sql_functions[] array and add a function that creates a function object in `item_create.cc'. Take a look at "ABS" and create_funcs_abs() for an example of this. If the function prototype is complicated (for example takes a variable number of arguments), you should add two lines to `sql_yacc.yy'. One indicates the preprocessor symbol that yacc should define (this should be added at the beginning of the file). Then define the function parameters and add an ``item'' with these parameters to the simple_expr parsing rule. For an example, check all occurrences of ATAN in `sql_yacc.yy' to see how this is done.
3. In `item_func.h', declare a class inheriting from Item_num_func or Item_str_func, depending on whether your function returns a number or a string.
4. In `item_func.cc', add one of the following declarations, depending on whether you are defining a numeric or string function:

   double   Item_func_newname::val()
   longlong Item_func_newname::val_int()
   String  *Item_func_newname::Str(String *str)
   

   If you inherit your object from any of the standard items (like Item_num_func), you probably only have to define one of the above functions and let the parent object take care of the other functions. For example, the Item_str_func class defines a val() function that executes atof() on the value returned by ::str().
5. You should probably also define the following object function:

   void Item_func_newname::fix_length_and_dec()
   

   This function should at least calculate max_length based on the given arguments. max_length is the maximum number of characters the function may return. This function should also set maybe_null = 0 if the main function can't return a NULL value. The function can check if any of the function arguments can return NULL by checking the arguments maybe_null variable. You can take a look at Item_func_mod::fix_length_and_dec for a typical example of how to do this.

All functions must be thread-safe (in other words, don't use any global or static variables in the functions without protecting them with mutexes).

If you want to return NULL, from ::val(), ::val_int() or ::str() you should set null_value to 1 and return 0.

For ::str() object functions, there are some additional considerations to be aware of:

• The String *str argument provides a string buffer that may be used to hold the result. (For more information about the String type, take a look at the `sql_string.h' file.)
• The ::str() function should return the string that holds the result or (char*) 0 if the result is NULL.
• All current string functions try to avoid allocating any memory unless absolutely necessary!

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