comparing data from mysql backups

Question

I've got a few backups of my database, and I'm trying to figure out if there is a way to compare the data in the backups to see how the data as changed over time. I do not have a timestamp on the fields I want to compare, but I do have a unique id on the row. The backups are .sql files created by using mysqldump.

Is there a process for doing this?

Answer 1

There are a number of diff tools for MySQL including a tool called MySQLDiff (http://www.mysqldiff.org/). There's also a command line interface for this that can be found here:

http://devzone.intellitree.com/projects/intellitree-cli-extension-to-mysqldiff/

See this previous StackOverFlow post for a visual diff tool similar to this (plus some other solutions):

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/218499/mysql-diff-tool