This post describes how to take backup/dump MySQL database by using mysqldump and create SQL-format dump files.
By default, mysqldump writes information as SQL statements to the standard output. You can save the output in a file:
# mysqldump [arguments] > file_name
To dump all databases, use –all-databases option:
# mysqldump –all-databases > dump.sql
To dump only specific databases, use –databases option with database name:
# mysqldump –databases db1 db2 db3 > dump.sql
The –databases option causes all names on the command line to be treated as database names. Without this option, mysqldump treats the first name as a database name and those following as table names.
In the single-database case, it is permissible to omit the –databases option:
# mysqldump test > dump.sql
The difference between the two preceding commands is that without –databases, the dump output contains no CREATE DATABASE or USE statements.
