How to save a MySQL dump into a variable from php?

Question

Certainly o could generate a dump file, then read this file and put into a variable. But is there a way to retrieve the dump and put into the variable directly? Thanks!

Yes, it's possible. But nobody's going to spend an hour writing the complete code for you, not at least anyone who knows what he's doing. That's not what this site is for. — Álvaro González, Apr 29 '13 at 09:35
@alvaro, you do this in 1 line... wouldn't take me an hour to write ;) — nvanesch, Apr 29 '13 at 09:39
@nvanesch That's because you are assuming he already knows how to create a dump from PHP and he'll understand your line of code and tweak it to his need—I wouldn't count on either things. — Álvaro González, Apr 29 '13 at 09:43
first line het tells us he can generate it, read the file and output it. — nvanesch, Apr 29 '13 at 09:46

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 29 '13 at 09:35

you can run it with shell_exec.

then all output is put in the php variable.

http://nl3.php.net/shell_exec

Edit, but please note that the output buffer for shell_exec is not unlimited. So if the DB grows very large, you will reach a moment where it will simply not function anymore. Also putting this in a variable puts it in memory. This might take up a lot of memory if you have a large DB.

I would advise to write it to a file and throughput it directly to the output when needed in php.

Yes i think it would be a better idea. – ABA Apr 29 '13 at 17:24 — ABA, Apr 29 '13 at 17:24

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 29 '13 at 09:51

You can use shell_exec() or exec() but puting all output to variable is bad idea.

exec('mysqldump --user=your_user --password=your_pass --host=your_host DATABASENAME > /path/dump.sql');

you can use exec and after it finishes work open file with file_get_contents()

How to save a MySQL dump into a variable from php?

2 Answers2