mysql dump - exclude some table data

Question

Is it possible, using mysql dump to export the entire database structure, but exclude certain tables data from export.

Say the database has 200 tables, I wish to export the structure of all 200 tables, but i want to ignore the data of 5 specific tables.

If this is possible, how is it done?

Answer 1

This will produce export.sql with structure from all tables and data from all tables excluding table_name

mysqldump --ignore-table=db_name.table_name db_name > export.sql mysqldump --no-data db_name table_name >> export.sql 

Answer 2

I think that AmitP's solution is great already - to improve it even further, I think it makes sense to create all tables (structure) first and then fill it with data, except the ones "excluded"

mysqldump --no-data db_name > export.sql mysqldump --no-create-info --ignore-table=db_name.table_name db_name >> export.sql 

if you want to exclude more than 1 table, simply use the --ignore-tabledirective more often (in the 2nc command) - see mysqldump help:

--ignore-table=name   Do not dump the specified table. To specify more than one                       table to ignore, use the directive multiple times, once                       for each table.  Each table must be specified with both                       database and table names, e.g.,                      --ignore-table=database.table