title: What does /*!xxxxxx statement */ generated by mysqldump mean?
body: <p>I was always curious about what these comment enclosed preprocessor-like statements that mysqldump generates for me mean. Here's an example:</p>
  
  <pre><code>/*!40000 ALTER TABLE abc DISABLE KEYS */;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The general pattern seems to be</p>
  
  <pre><code>/*![some numeric code] [some statement] */;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Please point to proper documentation if exists. Otherwise explain. :)</p>