Mysqldump launched by cron and password security

Question

I wrote a script to backup my MySQL databases using:

mysqldump --opt --all-databases -u user -pmypassword > myDump.sql

A cron launches i

Answer 1

All answers here are in pieces so sharing a complete command which will do the required and must be used if database are heavy in size, --single-transaction and --lock-tables are very important here

mysqldump --defaults-extra-file=/home/dangi/.my.cnf -u root --single-transaction --quick --lock-tables=false --all-databases (or) DATABASE | gzip > OUTPUT.gz;

Note: Answer is in add of Avibodha and sahil answer, they have already made the point. I am just putting their answer in single piece of code with important measure should be taken at time of backing up live database