This article shows how to backup/export and restore/import single & multiple databases and tables in MySQL.
Backup/Export
1) Backup/Export single database
mysqldump -h hostname -u username -p database_name > /path/backup.sql
2) Backup/Export multiple databases
mysqldump -h hostname -u username -p --databases db1 db2 db3 > /path/threedb.sql
Here: db1, db2, db3 are three different database name.
3) Backup/Export all databases
mysqldump -h hostname -u username -p --all-databases > /path/alldb.sql
4) Backup/Export only specific tables from database
mysqldump -h hostname -u username -p --databases database_name --table table_name1 table_name2 > /path/backup.sql
Here: table_name1 and table_name2 are dumped from database database_name.
5) Backup/Export database as gzip compressed file (Linux)
mysqldump -h hostname -u username -p database_name | gzip > /path/backup.sql.gz
6) Backup/Export database as bzip2 compressed file (Linux)
mysqldump -h hostname -u username -p database_name | bzip2 > /path/backup.sql.bz2
Restore/Import
1) Restore/Import database
mysql -h hostname -u username -p db_name < /path/backup.sql
2) Restore/Import database as gzip compressed file (Linux)
gunzip < /path/backup.sql.gz | mysql -h localhost -u username -p database_name
3) Restore/Import database as bzip2 compressed file (Linux)
bunzip2 < /path/backup.sql.bz2 | mysql -h localhost -u username -p database_name
Hope it helps. Thanks.