25.6. mysqldump

25.6. mysqldump

The mysqldump client program dumps table contents to files. It is useful for making database backups or for transferring database contents to another server. mysqldump can export tables as tab-delimited data files or produce SQL-format dump files that contain CREATE TABLE and INSERT statements for re-creating the dumped files.

When used to dump tables as data files, mysqldump by default writes table records as tab-delimited lines terminated by newlines. Tables can be dumped in other formats by specifying the format using command-line options.

Table contents dumped to data files can be dumped only on the server host, so when using mysqldump this way, it's best to invoke it on the server host.

When using mysqldump to produce SQL-format dump files, the server transfers table contents to mysqldump, which writes the dump file locally on the client host. SQL-format dumps can be generated for tables managed by local or remote servers.

For further information about mysqldump, see Section 15.3.2, "Exporting Data with mysqldump," and Section 32.4.2, "Making Text Backups with mysqldump."