MYSQLDUMP(1) MySQL Database System MYSQLDUMP(1)
NAME
mysqldump - a database backup program
SYNOPSIS
mysqldump [options] [db_name [tbl_name ...]]
DESCRIPTION
The mysqldump client is a backup program originally written by Igor Romanenko. It can be used to dump
a database or a collection of databases for backup or transfer to another SQL server (not necessarily
a MySQL server). The dump typically contains SQL statements to create the table, populate it, or
both. However, mysqldump can also be used to generate files in CSV, other delimited text, or XML
format.
If you are doing a backup on the server and your tables all are MyISAM tables, consider using the
mysqlhotcopy instead because it can accomplish faster backups and faster restores. See
mysqlhotcopy(1).
There are three general ways to invoke mysqldump:
shell> mysqldump [options] db_name [tables]
shell> mysqldump [options] --databases db_name1 [db_name2 db_name3...]
shell> mysqldump [options] --all-databases
If you do not name any tables following db_name or if you use the --databases or --all-databases
option, entire databases are dumped.
To get a list of the options your version of mysqldump supports, execute mysqldump --help.
Some mysqldump options are shorthand for groups of other options. --opt and --compact fall into this
category. For example, use of --opt is the same as specifying --add-drop-table --add-locks
--create-options --disable-keys --extended-insert --lock-tables --quick --set-charset. Note that all
of the options that --opt stands for also are on by default because --opt is on by default.
To reverse the effect of a group option, uses its --skip-xxx form (--skip-opt or --skip-compact). It
is also possible to select only part of the effect of a group option by following it with options
that enable or disable specific features. Here are some examples:
To select the effect of --opt except for some features, use the --skip option for each feature.
For example, to disable extended inserts and memory buffering, use --opt --skip-extended-insert
--skip-quick. (As of MySQL 5.0, --skip-extended-insert --skip-quick is sufficient because --opt is
on by default.)
To reverse --opt for all features except index disabling and table locking, use --skip-opt
--disable-keys --lock-tables.
When you selectively enable or disable the effect of a group option, order is important because
options are processed first to last. For example, --disable-keys --lock-tables --skip-opt would not
have the intended effect; it is the same as --skip-opt by itself.
mysqldump can retrieve and dump table contents row by row, or it can retrieve the entire content from
a table and buffer it in memory before dumping it. Buffering in memory can be a problem if you are
dumping large tables. To dump tables row by row, use the --quick option (or --opt, which enables
--quick). --opt (and hence --quick) is enabled by default as of MySQL 5.0 to enable memory
buffering, use --skip-quick.
If you are using a recent version of mysqldump to generate a dump to be reloaded into a very old
MySQL server, you should not use the --opt or --extended-insert option. Use --skip-opt instead.
Before MySQL 4.1.2, out-of-range numeric values such as -inf and inf, as well as NaN (not-a-number)
values are dumped by mysqldump as NULL. You can see this using the following sample table:
mysql> CREATE TABLE t (f DOUBLE);
mysql> INSERT INTO t VALUES(1e+111111111111111111111);
mysql> INSERT INTO t VALUES(-1e111111111111111111111);
mysql> SELECT f FROM t;
+------+
| f |
+------+
| inf |
| -inf |
+------+
For this table, mysqldump produces the following data output:
---- ---
-- Dumping data for table `t`
--INSERT -INSERT
INSERT INTO t VALUES (NULL);
INSERT INTO t VALUES (NULL);
The significance of this behavior is that if you dump and restore the table, the new table has
contents that differ from the original contents. This problem is fixed as of MySQL 4.1.2; you cannot
insert inf in the table, so this mysqldump behavior is only relevant when you deal with old servers.
mysqldump supports the following options:
--help, -?
Display a help message and exit.
--add-drop-database
Add a DROP DATABASE statement before each CREATE DATABASE statement.
--add-drop-table
Add a DROP TABLE statement before each CREATE TABLE statement.
--add-locks
Surround each table dump with LOCK TABLES and UNLOCK TABLES statements. This results in faster
inserts when the dump file is reloaded. See Section 2.17, "Speed of INSERT Statements".
--all-databases, -A
Dump all tables in all databases. This is the same as using the --databases option and naming all
the databases on the command line.
--allow-keywords
Allow creation of column names that are keywords. This works by prefixing each column name with
the table name.
--character-sets-dir=path
The directory where character sets are installed. See Section 8.1, "The Character Set Used for
Data and Sorting".
--comments, -i
Write additional information in the dump file such as program version, server version, and host.
This option is enabled by default. To suppress this additional information, use --skip-comments.
--compact
Produce less verbose output. This option suppresses comments and enables the
--skip-add-drop-table, --skip-set-charset, --skip-disable-keys, and --skip-add-locks options.
--compatible=name
Produce output that is more compatible with other database systems or with older MySQL servers.
The value of name can be ansi, mysql323, mysql40, postgresql, oracle, mssql, db2, maxdb,
no_key_options, no_table_options, or no_field_options. To use several values, separate them by
commas. These values have the same meaning as the corresponding options for setting the server SQL
mode. See the section called "SQL MODES".
This option does not guarantee compatibility with other servers. It only enables those SQL mode
values that are currently available for making dump output more compatible. For example,
--compatible=oracle does not map data types to Oracle types or use Oracle comment syntax.
This option requires a server version of 4.1.0 or higher. With older servers, it does nothing.
--complete-insert, -c
Use complete INSERT statements that include column names.
--compress, -C
Compress all information sent between the client and the server if both support compression.
--create-options
Include all MySQL-specific table options in the CREATE TABLE statements.
--databases, -B
Dump several databases. Normally, mysqldump treats the first name argument on the command line as
a database name and following names as table names. With this option, it treats all name arguments
as database names. CREATE DATABASE and USE statements are included in the output before each new
database.
--debug[=debug_options], -# [debug_options]
Write a debugging log. The debug_options string is often 'd:t:o,file_name'. The default value is
'd:t:o,/tmp/mysqldump.trace'.
--default-character-set=charset_name
Use charset_name as the default character set. See Section 8.1, "The Character Set Used for Data
and Sorting". If no character set is specified, mysqldump uses utf8, and earlier versions use
latin1.
--delayed-insert
Write INSERT DELAYED statements rather than INSERT statements.
--delete-master-logs
On a master replication server, delete the binary logs after performing the dump operation. This
option automatically enables --master-data.
--disable-keys, -K
For each table, surround the INSERT statements with /*!40000 ALTER TABLE tbl_name DISABLE KEYS */;
and /*!40000 ALTER TABLE tbl_name ENABLE KEYS */; statements. This makes loading the dump file
faster because the indexes are created after all rows are inserted. This option is effective only
for non-unique indexes of MyISAM tables.
--extended-insert, -e
Use multiple-row INSERT syntax that include several VALUES lists. This results in a smaller dump
file and speeds up inserts when the file is reloaded.
--fields-terminated-by=..., --fields-enclosed-by=..., --fields-optionally-enclosed-by=...,
--fields-escaped-by=...
These options are used with the -T option and have the same meaning as the corresponding clauses
for LOAD DATA INFILE. See Section 2.5, "LOAD DATA INFILE Syntax".
--first-slave, -x
Deprecated. Now renamed to --lock-all-tables.
--flush-logs, -F
Flush the MySQL server log files before starting the dump. This option requires the RELOAD
privilege. Note that if you use this option in combination with the --all-databases (or -A)
option, the logs are flushed for each database dumped. The exception is when using
--lock-all-tables or --master-data: In this case, the logs are flushed only once, corresponding to
the moment that all tables are locked. If you want your dump and the log flush to happen at
exactly the same moment, you should use --flush-logs together with either --lock-all-tables or
--master-data.
--flush-privileges
Emit a FLUSH PRIVILEGES statement after dumping the mysql database. This option should be used any
time the dump contains the mysql database and any other database that depends on the data in the
mysql database for proper restoration. This option was added in MySQL 5.0.26.
--force, -f
Continue even if an SQL error occurs during a table dump.
One use for this option is to cause mysqldump to continue executing even when it encounters a view
that has become invalid because the defintion refers to a table that has been dropped. Without
--force, mysqldump exits with an error message. With --force, mysqldump prints the error message,
but it also writes a SQL comment containing the view definition to the dump output and continues
executing.
--host=host_name, -h host_name
Dump data from the MySQL server on the given host. The default host is localhost.
--hex-blob
Dump binary columns using hexadecimal notation (for example, 'abc' becomes 0x616263). The affected
data types are BINARY, VARBINARY, and BLOB. As of MySQL 5.0.13, BIT columns are affected as well.
--ignore-table=db_name.tbl_name
Do not dump the given table, which must be specified using both the database and table names. To
ignore multiple tables, use this option multiple times.
--insert-ignore
Write INSERT statements with the IGNORE option.
--lines-terminated-by=...
This option is used with the -T option and has the same meaning as the corresponding clause for
LOAD DATA INFILE. See Section 2.5, "LOAD DATA INFILE Syntax".
--lock-all-tables, -x
Lock all tables across all databases. This is achieved by acquiring a global read lock for the
duration of the whole dump. This option automatically turns off --single-transaction and
--lock-tables.
--lock-tables, -l
Lock all tables before dumping them. The tables are locked with READ LOCAL to allow concurrent
inserts in the case of MyISAM tables. For transactional tables such as InnoDB and BDB,
--single-transaction is a much better option, because it does not need to lock the tables at all.
Please note that when dumping multiple databases, --lock-tables locks tables for each database
separately. Therefore, this option does not guarantee that the tables in the dump file are
logically consistent between databases. Tables in different databases may be dumped in completely
different states.
--master-data[=value]
Write the binary log filename and position to the output. This option requires the RELOAD
privilege and the binary log must be enabled. If the option value is equal to 1, the position and
filename are written to the dump output in the form of a CHANGE MASTER statement. If the dump is
from a master server and you use it to set up a slave server, the CHANGE MASTER statement causes
the slave to start from the correct position in the master's binary logs. If the option value is
equal to 2, the CHANGE MASTER statement is written as an SQL comment. (This is the default action
if value is omitted.)
The --master-data option automatically turns off --lock-tables. It also turns on
--lock-all-tables, unless --single-transaction also is specified (in which case, a global read
lock is acquired only for a short time at the beginning of the dump. See also the description for
--single-transaction. In all cases, any action on logs happens at the exact moment of the dump.
--no-autocommit
Enclose the INSERT statements for each dumped table within SET AUTOCOMMIT=0 and COMMIT statements.
--no-create-db, -n
This option suppresses the CREATE DATABASE statements that are otherwise included in the output if
the --databases or --all-databases option is given.
--no-create-info, -t
Do not write CREATE TABLE statements that re-create each dumped table.
--no-data, -d
Do not write any table row information (that is, do not dump table contents). This is very useful
if you want to dump only the CREATE TABLE statement for the table.
--opt
This option is shorthand; it is the same as specifying --add-drop-table --add-locks
--create-options --disable-keys --extended-insert --lock-tables --quick --set-charset. It should
give you a fast dump operation and produce a dump file that can be reloaded into a MySQL server
quickly.
The --opt option is enabled by default. Use --skip-opt to disable it. See the discussion at the
beginning of this section for information about selectively enabling or disabling certain of the
options affected by --opt.
--order-by-primary
Sorts each table's rows by its primary key, or by its first unique index, if such an index exists.
This is useful when dumping a MyISAM table to be loaded into an InnoDB table, but will make the
dump itself take considerably longer.
--password[=password], -p[password]
The password to use when connecting to the server. If you use the short option form (-p), you
cannot have a space between the option and the password. If you omit the password value following
the --password or -p option on the command line, you are prompted for one.
Specifying a password on the command line should be considered insecure. See Section 6.6, "Keeping
Your Password Secure".
--port=port_num, -P port_num
The TCP/IP port number to use for the connection.
--protocol={TCP|SOCKET|PIPE|MEMORY}
The connection protocol to use.
--quick, -q
This option is useful for dumping large tables. It forces mysqldump to retrieve rows for a table
from the server a row at a time rather than retrieving the entire row set and buffering it in
memory before writing it out.
--quote-names, -Q
Quote database, table, and column names within ``' characters. If the ANSI_QUOTES SQL mode is
enabled, names are quoted within `"' characters. This option is enabled by default. It can be
disabled with --skip-quote-names, but this option should be given after any option such as
--compatible that may enable --quote-names.
--result-file=file, -r file
Direct output to a given file. This option should be used on Windows to prevent newline `\n'
characters from being converted to `\r\n' carriage return/newline sequences. The result file is
created and its contents overwritten, even if an error occurs while generating the dump. The
previous contents are lost.
--routines, -R
Dump stored routines (functions and procedures) from the dumped databases. Use of this option
requires the SELECT privilege for the mysql.proc table. The output generated by using --routines
contains CREATE PROCEDURE and CREATE FUNCTION statements to re-create the routines. However, these
statements do not include attributes such as the routine creation and modification timestamps.
This means that when the routines are reloaded, they will be created with the timestamps equal to
the reload time.
If you require routines to be re-created with their original timestamp attributes, do not use
--routines. Instead, dump and reload the contents of the mysql.proc table directly, using a MySQL
account that has appropriate privileges for the mysql database.
This option was added in MySQL 5.0.13. Before that, stored routines are not dumped. Routine
DEFINER values are not dumped until MySQL 5.0.20. This means that before 5.0.20, when routines are
reloaded, they will be created with the definer set to the reloading user. If you require routines
to be re-created with their original definer, dump and load the contents of the mysql.proc table
directly as described earlier.
--set-charset
Add SET NAMES default_character_set to the output. This option is enabled by default. To suppress
the SET NAMES statement, use --skip-set-charset.
--single-transaction
This option issues a BEGIN SQL statement before dumping data from the server. It is useful only
with transactional tables such as InnoDB and BDB, because then it dumps the consistent state of
the database at the time when BEGIN was issued without blocking any applications.
When using this option, you should keep in mind that only InnoDB tables are dumped in a consistent
state. For example, any MyISAM or MEMORY tables dumped while using this option may still change
state.
The --single-transaction option and the --lock-tables option are mutually exclusive, because LOCK
TABLES causes any pending transactions to be committed implicitly.
This option is not supported for MySQL Cluster tables; the results cannot be guaranteed to be
consistent due to the fact that the NDBCluster storage engine supports only the READ_COMMITTED
transaction isolation level. You should always use NDB backup and restore instead.
To dump large tables, you should combine this option with --quick.
--skip-opt
See the description for the --opt option.
--socket=path, -S path
For connections to localhost, the Unix socket file to use, or, on Windows, the name of the named
pipe to use.
--skip-comments
See the description for the --comments option.
--ssl*
Options that begin with --ssl specify whether to connect to the server via SSL and indicate where
to find SSL keys and certificates. See Section 6.7.3, "SSL Command Options".
--tab=path, -T path
Produce tab-separated data files. For each dumped table, mysqldump creates a tbl_name.sql file
that contains the CREATE TABLE statement that creates the table, and a tbl_name.txt file that
contains its data. The option value is the directory in which to write the files.
By default, the .txt data files are formatted using tab characters between column values and a
newline at the end of each line. The format can be specified explicitly using the --fields-xxx and
--lines-terminated-by options.
Note: This option should be used only when mysqldump is run on the same machine as the mysqld
server. You must have the FILE privilege, and the server must have permission to write files in
the directory that you specify.
--tables
Override the --databases or -B option. mysqldump regards all name arguments following the option
as table names.
--triggers
Dump triggers for each dumped table. This option is enabled by default; disable it with
--skip-triggers. This option was added in MySQL 5.0.11. Before that, triggers are not dumped.
--tz-utc
Add SET TIME_ZONE='+00:00' to the dump file so that TIMESTAMP columns can be dumped and reloaded
between servers in different time zones. Without this option, TIMESTAMP columns are dumped and
reloaded in the time zones local to the source and destination servers, which can cause the values
to change. --tz-utc also protects against changes due to daylight saving time. --tz-utc is
enabled by default. To disable it, use --skip-tz-utc. This option was added in MySQL 5.0.15.
--user=user_name, -u user_name
The MySQL username to use when connecting to the server.
--verbose, -v
Verbose mode. Print more information about what the program does.
--version, -V
Display version information and exit.
--where='where_condition', -w 'where_condition'
Dump only rows selected by the given WHERE condition. Quotes around the condition are mandatory if
it contains spaces or other characters that are special to your command interpreter.
Examples:
--where="user='jimf'"
-w"userid>1"
-w"userid<1"
--xml, -X
Write dump output as well-formed XML.
NULL, 'NULL', and Empty Values: For some column named column_name, the NULL value, an empty
string, and the string value 'NULL' are distinguished from one another in the output generated by
this option as follows:
+----------------------+-------------------------------------------------------+
|Value: | XML Representation: |
+----------------------+-------------------------------------------------------+
|NULL (unknown value) | <field name="column_name" |
| | xsi:nil="true" |
| | /> |
+----------------------+-------------------------------------------------------+
|'' (empty string) | <field |
| | name="column_name"></field> |
+----------------------+-------------------------------------------------------+
|'NULL' (string value) | <field |
| | name="column_name">NULL</field> |
+----------------------+-------------------------------------------------------+
Beginning with MySQL 5.0.26, the output from the mysql client when run using the --xml option also
follows these rules. (See the section called "MYSQL OPTIONS".)
Beginning with MySQL 5.0.40, XML output from mysqldump includes the XML namespace, as shown here:
shell> mysqldump --xml -u root world City
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<mysqldump xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<database name="world">
<table_structure name="City">
<field Field="ID" Type="int(11)" Null="NO" Key="PRI" Extra="auto_increment" />
<field Field="Name" Type="char(35)" Null="NO" Key="" Default="" Extra="" />
<field Field="CountryCode" Type="char(3)" Null="NO" Key="" Default="" Extra="" />
<field Field="District" Type="char(20)" Null="NO" Key="" Default="" Extra="" />
<field Field="Population" Type="int(11)" Null="NO" Key="" Default="0" Extra="" />
<key Table="City" Non_unique="0" Key_name="PRIMARY" Seq_in_index="1" Column_name="ID" Collation="A" Cardinality="4079"
Null="" Index_type="BTREE" Comment="" />
<options Name="City" Engine="MyISAM" Version="10" Row_format="Fixed" Rows="4079" Avg_row_length="67" Data_length="27329
3" Max_data_length="18858823439613951" Index_length="43008" Data_free="0" Auto_increment="4080" Create_time="2007-03-31 01:47:01" Updat
e_time="2007-03-31 01:47:02" Collation="latin1_swedish_ci" Create_options="" Comment="" />
</table_structure>
<table_data name="City">
<row>
<field name="ID">1</field>
<field name="Name">Kabul</field>
<field name="CountryCode">AFG</field>
<field name="District">Kabol</field>
<field name="Population">1780000</field>
</row>
...
<row>
<field name="ID">4079</field>
<field name="Name">Rafah</field>
<field name="CountryCode">PSE</field>
<field name="District">Rafah</field>
<field name="Population">92020</field>
</row>
</table_data>
</database>
</mysqldump>
You can also set the following variables by using --var_name=value syntax:
max_allowed_packet
The maximum size of the buffer for client/server communication. The maximum is 1GB.
net_buffer_length
The initial size of the buffer for client/server communication. When creating multiple-row-insert
statements (as with option --extended-insert or --opt), mysqldump creates rows up to
net_buffer_length length. If you increase this variable, you should also ensure that the
net_buffer_length variable in the MySQL server is at least this large.
It is also possible to set variables by using --set-variable=var_name=value or -O var_name=value
syntax. This syntax is deprecated.
The most common use of mysqldump is probably for making a backup of an entire database:
shell> mysqldump db_name > backup-file.sql
You can read the dump file back into the server like this:
shell> mysql db_name < backup-file.sql
Or like this:
shell> mysql -e "source /path-to-backup/backup-file.sql" db_name
mysqldump is also very useful for populating databases by copying data from one MySQL server to
another:
shell> mysqldump --opt db_name | mysql --host=remote_host -C db_name
It is possible to dump several databases with one command:
shell> mysqldump --databases db_name1 [db_name2 ...] > my_databases.sql
To dump all databases, use the --all-databases option:
shell> mysqldump --all-databases > all_databases.sql
For InnoDB tables, mysqldump provides a way of making an online backup:
shell> mysqldump --all-databases --single-transaction > all_databases.sql
This backup just needs to acquire a global read lock on all tables (using FLUSH TABLES WITH READ
LOCK) at the beginning of the dump. As soon as this lock has been acquired, the binary log
coordinates are read and the lock is released. If and only if one long updating statement is running
when the FLUSH statement is issued, the MySQL server may get stalled until that long statement
finishes, and then the dump becomes lock-free. If the update statements that the MySQL server
receives are short (in terms of execution time), the initial lock period should not be noticeable,
even with many updates.
For point-in-time recovery (also known as "roll-forward," when you need to restore an old backup and
replay the changes that happened since that backup), it is often useful to rotate the binary log (see
Section 9.3, "The Binary Log") or at least know the binary log coordinates to which the dump
corresponds:
shell> mysqldump --all-databases --master-data=2 > all_databases.sql
Or:
shell> mysqldump --all-databases --flush-logs --master-data=2
> all_databases.sql
The --master-data and --single-transaction options can be used simultaneously, which provides a
convenient way to make an online backup suitable for point-in-time recovery if tables are stored
using the InnoDB storage engine.
For more information on making backups, see Section 7.1, "Database Backups", and Section 7.2,
"Example Backup and Recovery Strategy".
If you encounter problems backing up views, please read the section that covers restrictions on views
which describes a workaround for backing up views when this fails due to insufficient privileges. See
Section 4, "Restrictions on Views".
COPYRIGHT
Copyright 1997-2007 MySQL AB
This documentation is NOT distributed under a GPL license. Use of this documentation is subject to
the following terms: You may create a printed copy of this documentation solely for your own personal
use. Conversion to other formats is allowed as long as the actual content is not altered or edited in
any way. You shall not publish or distribute this documentation in any form or on any media, except
if you distribute the documentation in a manner similar to how MySQL disseminates it (that is,
electronically for download on a Web site with the software) or on a CD-ROM or similar medium,
provided however that the documentation is disseminated together with the software on the same
medium. Any other use, such as any dissemination of printed copies or use of this documentation, in
whole or in part, in another publication, requires the prior written consent from an authorized
representative of MySQL AB. MySQL AB reserves any and all rights to this documentation not expressly
granted above.
Please email <docs@mysql.com> for more information.
SEE ALSO
For more information, please refer to the MySQL Reference Manual, which may already be installed
locally and which is also available online at http://dev.mysql.com/doc/
AUTHOR
MySQL AB (http://www.mysql.com/) This software comes with no warranty.
MySQL 5.0 07/04/2007 MYSQLDUMP(1)
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