PHP/MySQL Dump to File

[mididelight]

Hello,

So I want to create a php script that will use the MySQL dump feature to dump my database (and specified tables) to a file that I will create on the fly with php. Is this possible? I did some research but could not find anything.

Any help is appreciated, thanks.

PS I know I can just use PHPMyAdmin to dump the contents of my database, but I am trying to create this script, so it will automatically make a file on the server and save the dump contents.

Thanks

[timmah]

cron this

$filename= "backupname-$datestamp.sql.gz"; // The name path of the dump file

$command = "mysqldump -u $dbuser --password=$dbpwd $dbname | gzip > $filename";
$result = passthru($command);

[mididelight]

would doing it this way require me to have the file already created on the server? I wanted to create the file automatically.

Also in the MySQLDump command, how do I specify which tables to dump. I woulld like to ignore some tables.

[timmah]

no you will not have to have the file already on the server. it will automatically create it in the directory.

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/mysqldump.html

You could then ftp that file or email it if it was small or whatever you want to do with it...

[chazzy]

Here's the best source for mysqldump

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/mysqldump.html

[mididelight]

so i try this:

$command = "mysqldump dbname orders > file.sql"; 

and i see that the file is created, but the file is empty. is there an error log I can look up?

Am I doing this wrong? I tried it with the commands for user and password but that didnt work either.

[mididelight]

any reason why I the file is created but empty? it looks to me like I am not getting connected to the database, but i do not get any error messages. is there an mysql_error log somewhere?