Question

I have experienced about two times that mysql database crashes and it can not be connected for a long time and I always have to contact the hosting service to reactivate it…for some reason. So I want to create a mechanism to resolve this problem whit the backup file. heres the code:

<?php
$query = //some source
$db_user = "data_search";
$db_password = "password";
$database = "data_search";
$backupfile = '/data_search.sql';  
$db_table = "words";
$db = mysql_connect($hostname, $db_user, $db_password);
mysql_select_db($database,$db);
mysql_query("set names 'utf8'");

if ($db) {
    $result = mysql_query("
        SELECT
            *
        FROM
            $db_table
        WHERE
            word = '$query'
        LIMIT
            0 , 1
    ");
} else {
    $result = mysql_query("
        LOAD DATA INFILE
            '$backupfile'
        FROM
            '$db_table'
        WHERE
            word = '$query'
        LIMIT
            0 , 1
    ");  
}

$num = mysql_numrows($result); 
$i = 0;
while ($i < $num) {
    $word = mysql_result($result,$i,"word");
    echo $word;
    $i++;
}

Now this is only a sample and im 100% accurate that the error is in the backup query($result). Basically what I want is to: if it cant connect to use the backup file. This returns $num = 0; Can someone help me to execute this code? What mysql_query() am I looking for?

Answer 1

Use mysqldump instead. You may start it from PHP:

/* get mysql database as gzipped backup file;
 * be aware, that the DB-password is stored in the ~/.bash_history,
 * if you include it in the program-call;
 */
shell_exec('mysqldump --host=DB_HOST --user=DB_USER --password=DB_PASSWORD --databases DB_NAME --skip-triggers --compact --no-create-info | gzip -9 > BACKUP_FILENAME-`date +%Y-%m-%d_%Hh%Mm%Ss`.sql.gz')

Or just do that via a shell-script:

# !/bin/bash

REMOTE_DB_USER="my-database-user"
REMOTE_DB_PASSWORD="my-database-password"
REMOTE_DATABASE="my-database-name"
LOCAL_BACKUP_DIRECTORY="~/backup/dumps"
CURRENT_TIMESTAMP=`date +%Y-%m-%d_%Hh%Mm%Ss`

# switch to local backup directory
echo "change dir";
cd $LOCAL_BACKUP_DIRECTORY

# dump whole remote database to gzipped file
echo "dump db to local"
/usr/bin/mysqldump --user=$REMOTE_DB_USER --password=$REMOTE_DB_PASSWORD --host=127.0.0.1 --port=3306 $REMOTE_DATABASE | gzip -9 > dump-$CURRENT_TIMESTAMP.sql.gz

echo "finished"