Dump a mysql database to a plaintext (CSV) backup from the command line

Question

I\'d like to avoid mysqldump since that outputs in a form that is only convenient for mysql to read. CSV seems more universal (one file per table is fine). But if there ar

Answer 1

You can dump a whole database in one go with mysqldump's --tab option. You supply a directory path and it creates one .sql file with the CREATE TABLE DROP IF EXISTS syntax and a .txt file with the contents, tab separated. To create comma separated files you could use the following:

mysqldump --password  --fields-optionally-enclosed-by='"' --fields-terminated-by=',' --tab /tmp/path_to_dump/ database_name

That path needs to be writable by both the mysql user and the user running the command, so for simplicity I recommend chmod 777 /tmp/path_to_dump/ first.