What does “too many positional options” mean when doing a mongoexport?

Question

mongoexport -h db.mysite.com -u myUser -p myPass -c myCollection

But the response I get is:

ERROR: too many positional options

Answer 1

This also works if you place the -c option first. For me, this order does work:

mongoexport -c collection -h ds111111.mlab.com:11111 -u user -p pass -d mydb

You can also leave the pass out and the server will ask you to enter the pass. This only works if the server supports SASL authentication (mlab does not for example).