Dump A Database To A File

The mysqldump client is a handy tool for creating a backup or snapshot of a MySQL database. The standard use of this command produces an alphabetical series of statements that comprise the structure and data of the specified database. It directs all of this to stdout. You'll likely want to redirect it to a file.

$ mysqldump my_database > my_database_backup.sql

The output will include special comments with MySQL directives that disable things like constraint checking. This is what allows the output to be in alphabetical order without necessarily violating any foreign key constraints.

If you need to dump multiple databases, include the --databases flag with a space-separated list of database names. Or dump all of them with --all-databases.

See man mysqldump for more details.