How to restore SQL file generated by MySQLDump using command prompt

Question

I have a SQL file generated by MySQLDump. How can I restore it via command prompt?

Answer 1

Run this command (if the mysql executable isn't in your PATH, first go to the directory where the MySQL binary is installed, something like \mysql\bin):

mysql -u username -ppassword databasename < file.sql 

(Note that there is no space between -p and the password)

Or if the file is gzipped (like my backups mostly are) then something like this:

gunzip file.sql.gz | mysql -u username -ppassword databasename 

or on some systems it might be necessary to add the -c flag to gunzip, like so (to force it to output to stdout):

gunzip -c file.sql.gz | mysql -u username -ppassword databasename