what are flags in mysql?

I just wanna ask, what are those things called as "flags" in m开发者_Go百科ysql ?

What are they, kindly explain and how they are used.

mysql flags are used by the compiler and set the enviroment you wish to work in.

There's flags such as:

'--with-archive-storage-engine'

wgich does what it states, it would start mysql process but also start the system in archive able content mode

Some more examples:

'--prefix=/usr/local/mysql' \ 
'--disable-dependency-tracking' \ 
'--enable-assembler' \ 
'--localstatedir=/usr/local/mysql/data' \ 
'--libexecdir=/usr/local/mysql/bin' \ 
'--libdir=/usr/local/mysql/lib' \ 
'--enable-local-infile' \ 
'--enable-shared' \ 
'--enable-thread-safe-client' \ 
'--with-archive-storage-engine' \ 
'--with-big-tables' \ 
'--with-comment=MySQL Community Server (GPL)' \ 
'--with-extra-charsets=complex' \ 
'--with-innodb' \ 
'--with-mysqld-ldflags=-all-static' \ 
'--with-readline' \ 
'--with-server-suffix=-standard' \ 
'--with-unix-socket-path=/tmp/mysql.sock' \ 
'--with-zlib-dir=bundled' \ 
'--without-debug' \ 
'--without-docs' \ 
'--without-man'