How to generate the whole database script in MySQL Workbench?

Question

I want to take the whole database. Where do I find the database file?

And is there a way to write the whole database with all data to a text file (like the one in SQL Server)?

Answer 1

How to generate SQL scripts for your database in Workbench

1. In Workbench Central (the default "Home" tab) connect to your MySQL instance, opening a SQL Editor tab.
2. Click on the SQL Editor tab and select your database from the SCHEMAS list in the Object Browser on the left.
3. From the menu select Database > Reverse Engineer and follow the prompts. The wizard will lead you through connecting to your instance, selecting your database, and choosing the types of objects you want to reverse engineer. When you're all done, you will have at least one new tab called MySQL Model. You may also have a tab called EER Diagram which is cool but not relevant here.
4. Click in the MySQL Model tab
5. Select Database > Forward Engineer
6. Follow the prompts. Many options present themselves, including Generate INSERT Scripts for Tables which allows you to script out the data contained within your tables (perfect for lookup tables).
7. Soon you will see the generated script in front of you. At this point you can Copy to Clipboard or Save to Text File.

The wizard will take you further, but if you just want the script you can stop here.

A word of caution: the scripts are generated with CREATE commands. If you want ALTER you'll have to (as far as I can tell) manually change the CREATEs to ALTERs.

This is guaranteed to work, I just did it tonight.