How do I dump view schemas for a MySQL database?

Question

I have a MySQL database for which I wish to dump schemas for views. How do I do this? I tried mysqldump with --no-data, but that only dumps table schemas.

Solution 1

I think you might either be passing some other options to mysqldump, or using a version of mysqldump that doesn't understand views (perhaps it's too old). When I run mysqldump --no-data, it does dump out the view definitions. See the below:

/*!50001 CREATE ALGORITHM=UNDEFINED */
/*!50013 DEFINER=`root`@`localhost` SQL SECURITY DEFINER */
/*!50001 VIEW `t` AS select 1 AS `1` */;

Solution 2

Use --opt option while making the dump:

mysqldump -hserver -uUser -ppasswd -no-data --opt export > export.sql

Solution 3

Mysqldump won't have any options to dump only on views.The below command will help you to take the backup of only views.

mysql -uroot -pPassword INFORMATION_SCHEMA --skip-column-names -e "select table_name from tables where table_type = 'VIEW' and table_schema = 'sakila'" | xargs mysqldump -u root -pPassword sakila > only_views.sql

Comments

[Thomas Berger]

maybe the questioner didn't have a look in the mysqldump? To dump the views commented out is a very bad style by MySQL. There should at least a hint in the docs, but there is none.

[Chad Johnson]

Nevermind, I was wrong. It did dump the views. Thank god. Cool.

[mdpc]

Although for security reasons, I'd not put the password on the command line, I'd let the program prompt for it.

[Gary]

These are conditional comments that execute depending on your version of MySQL, see: dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.6/en/comments.html

[Nam G VU]

I think we need to clarify that export in the command is a specific schema/database name i.e. NOT a mysqldump syntax