Question

I want to export the sql script to recreate a particular database and it’s tables, and then export another script to populate the content of the tables.

I’d then like to be able to run the script on a different MySQL instance and setup the same database structure, and then load the content.

Answer 1

I’m not sure why you think you need two scripts as you can export the schemas and content in a single script. To create this, the easiest solution is to use the mysqldump command line tool that’s bundled with MySQL. This will create a text file that you can use the restore the entire database/specific tables, etc. to their original state.

As a hint, you might want to take special notice of the “–add-drop-table” option as this will prove useful if you ever want to stomp over whatever’s there with the contents of the backup file. (N.B.: This will of course wipe out ALL the “current” data.)

That said, if you want you can simply dump the schema information via the --no-data option. (And use --no-create-info to simply dump the content.)