Compare "generated columns" in MySQL 5.7.5 labs (refer http://mysqlserverteam.com/generated-columns-in-mysql-5-7-5/).  It has instrumentation in SHOW and I_S.  Please admit that this is a bug and an oversight from MariaDB to forget about this!

Field    Type     Null    Key     


select version(); -- 5.7.5-labs-preview

create table comments(
  userid int AS (ExtractValue(comment,'/comment/userid')) STORED,
  comment TEXT,
  KEY(userid));
  

show columns from comments;
/*Default  Extra    
-------  -------  ------  ------  -------  ---------
userid   int(11)  YES     MUL     (NULL)   VIRTUAL  
comment  text     YES             (NULL)            
*/

describe comments;
/*
Field    Type     Null    Key     Default  Extra    
-------  -------  ------  ------  -------  ---------
userid   int(11)  YES     MUL     (NULL)   VIRTUAL  
comment  text     YES             (NULL)            
*/

show full fields from comments;
/*
Field    Type     Collation          Null    Key     Default  Extra    Privileges                       Comment  
-------  -------  -----------------  ------  ------  -------  -------  -------------------------------  ---------
userid   int(11)  (NULL)             YES     MUL     (NULL)   VIRTUAL  select,insert,update,references           
comment  text     latin1_swedish_ci  YES             (NULL)            select,insert,update,references           
*/

select * from information_schema.`COLUMNS` where TABLE_NAME = 'comments';

/*
TABLE_CATALOG  TABLE_SCHEMA  TABLE_NAME  COLUMN_NAME  ORDINAL_POSITION  COLUMN_DEFAULT  IS_NULLABLE  DATA_TYPE  CHARACTER_MAXIMUM_LENGTH  CHARACTER_OCTET_LENGTH  NUMERIC_PRECISION  NUMERIC_SCALE  DATETIME_PRECISION  CHARACTER_SET_NAME  COLLATION_NAME     COLUMN_TYPE  COLUMN_KEY  EXTRA    PRIVILEGES                       COLUMN_COMMENT  GENERATION_EXPRESSION                    
-------------  ------------  ----------  -----------  ----------------  --------------  -----------  ---------  ------------------------  ----------------------  -----------------  -------------  ------------------  ------------------  -----------------  -----------  ----------  -------  -------------------------------  --------------  -----------------------------------------
def            test          comments    userid                      1  (NULL)          YES          int                          (NULL)                  (NULL)                 10              0              (NULL)  (NULL)              (NULL)             int(11)      MUL         VIRTUAL  select,insert,update,references                  ExtractValue(comment,'/comment/userid')  
def            test          comments    comment                     2  (NULL)          YES          text                          65535                   65535             (NULL)         (NULL)              (NULL)  latin1              latin1_swedish_ci  text                              select,insert,update,references                                                           
*/

On Fri, Dec 26, 2014 at 1:28 PM, Peter Laursen <peter_laursen@webyog.com> wrote:
This page https://mariadb.com/kb/en/mariadb/documentation/nosql/dynamic-columns-api/ does not mention anything about it. it  just says

The API is a part of libmysql C client library. In order to use it, one needs to include this header file
#include <mysql/ma_dyncol.h>
and link against libmysql.

Now can ma_dyncol.h be linked against libmaria as well?

There are 2 questions actually
1) technical: will it work with libmaria? 
2) legal: can a client program using libmaria under LGPL license include ma_dyncol.h?


-- Peter
-- Webyog