Hi, I am enhancing a program (in VC++) to be able to use a MySQL database. Now, the way I start MySQL in case the server is not already running when my program is run is by using:

HINSTANCE result = ShellExecute(NULL, _T("open"), _T("winmysqladmin"), NULL,_T("C:\\mysql\\bin"), SW_SHOWDEFAULT ); ...(i)

Once the server starts, the value of 'max_allowed_packet' is 1MB. Now at run-time, I want to store something really huge (an image) in the database and so I want to set 'max_allowed_packet' to something big, say 16MB. I tried using mysql_options():-

mysql_options(db, MYSQL_READ_DEFAULT_FILE, options_filename)

to read a config file (C:/foobar/myownfoo.ini )which has the line:

set-variable=max_allowed_packet=16MB ... (ii)

But for some reason, I still get the usual 'Got packet bigger than max_allowed_packet' error message when I execute the query. I am calling mysql_options() AFTER mysql_init() and BEFORE mysql_real_connect(). I tried to uncomment (ii) in the usual C:/WINDOWS/my.ini file and everything works fine. BUT, I don't want to do that. I want to be able to read another options file and change the value at runtime for certain queries. Another thing that is also acceptable is, when I run winmysqladmin.exe in (i), I read myownfoo.ini , and set max_allowed_packet to 16MB when the server initially starts. Then I don't need to use mysql_options().

Can someone please throw some light on this? Thanks in advance.