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

The select into outfile option wouldn't work for me but the below roundabout way of piping tab-delimited file through SED did:

mysql -uusername -ppassword -e "SELECT * from tablename" dbname | sed 's/\t/","/g;s/^/"/;s/$/"/' > /path/to/file/filename.csv