[Deploying Sakai] MySQL dump format for backing up

[Colin Tatham]

Hi

Just wondering whether anyone has any experience or opinions on this.
mysqldump has an option which produces separate files for the database
structure (in SQL files) and content (in tab-delimited plain text files):
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/mysqldump-delimited-text.html

We have a Sakai DB dump in this format which I need to restore, but as there
doesn't seem to be any MySQL facility to restore from the 677 files in the
tar archive automatically, I'll need to script it. Anyone done that already?

I'm also interested to know what the usual practice is for backing up; do
most of you do the standard mysqldump back-up to a single very large SQL
file, and then have that backed up at the file-level by your normal back-up
software (TSM, in our case)? Anyone have any opinions of the possible
advantages of using the separated format?

Thanks!

Colin


-- 
Colin Tatham | Educational Technologist | Learning Environments
 University Library | The University of Melbourne
W http://www.trs.unimelb.edu.au