This section describes how to use mysqldump to produce dump files, and how to reload dump files. A dump file can be used in several ways:
As a backup to enable data recovery in case of data loss.
As a source of data for setting up replication slaves.
As a source of data for experimentation:
To make a copy of a database that you can use without changing the original data.
To test potential upgrade incompatibilities.
mysqldump writes SQL statements to the
standard output. This output consists of
CREATE statements to create dumped objects
(databases, tables, stored routines, and so forth), and
INSERT statements to load data into tables.
The output can be saved in a file and reloaded later using
mysql to recreate the dumped objects.
Options are available to modify the format of the SQL
statements, and to control which objects are dumped.
mysqldump produces two output files for
each dumped table. The server writes one file as tab-delimited
text, one line per table row. This file is named
in the output directory. The server also sends a
CREATE TABLE statement for the
table to mysqldump, which writes it as a
in the output directory.