Export CSV from MySQL Query

As you might be aware that I started a "Murmur" category on my blog. I discover or learn these tips on day-to-day basis and just forget them. Sometimes those takes hours to come with one or often it boils down to just a google search. In any case, you might want to refer to these tips in future as well. So I decided to keep a log of them publicly so that it can help others too. Many times I need to get dump of data which is output of a sql query. MySQL makes it very easy to output the query result as csv file from command line. Following command should create a names.csv file in $MYSQL_INSTALLATION/data/$DB_NAME/ directory. This command comes very handy when you're working on remote shell where you don't have any GUI tools.

SELECT first_name, last_name INTO OUTFILE 'names.csv'
FIELDS TERMINATED BY ','
ENCLOSED BY '"'
ESCAPED BY '\\'
LINES TERMINATED BY '\n'
from employee;

Very useful.

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