In some situations requiring a shared library for compression is a hassle. For example the WiredTiger LevelDB API will always require snappy, and it's not obvious where to find the WiredTiger snappy shared object. Similarly for any WiredTiger Node APIs - especially since Node requires libraries to be statically linked.

A proposal is to add a new option to configure of the form:

--with-builtins=snappy

What the option will do is:

• Change the entry point for the WiredTiger snappy library from
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   to 

  snappy_extension_init

   (or similar).
  * Have the WiredTiger snappy library code built into the WiredTiger library.
  * Create a new string that is something like: 

  #define BUILTIN_EXTENSIONS="snappy"

  * Add functionality to 

  ___conn_load_extensions

  , so that it loads the built in snappy library (using the BUILTIN_EXTENSIONS string). It can do this by using 

  dlopen(null, ...)

  , or via a direct call to the function - depending on whether we want code in conn_api.c to be conditionally compiled.
  * Disallow both 

  --enable-snappy

   and 

  --with-builtins=snappy

   to the same configure command.
  
  Further.. This scheme should be extensible, so we can support a list of built in extensions. For example:
  
  

  --with-builtins=snappy,zlib
  `