How to Backup / Export MySQL Database using PHP

Regular database backup is very important task for developers. It prevent risk to lose data as if any issue occur on server like hacking or server crash. So you must set scheduled database backup to prevent from any future data loss.

You can take mysql database backup in many ways. You can directly login in your hosting cpanel and take full backup by just few clicks but if you don’t have access to cpanel you can create simple PHP script and set it to scheduled backup. So In this Post I am going to share following useful PHP script to take MySql database backup / export.

Use following PHP Script to take Mysql database backup

select_db($name); 
        $mysqli->query("SET NAMES 'utf8'");

        $queryTables    = $mysqli->query('SHOW TABLES'); 
        while($row = $queryTables->fetch_row()) 
        { 
            $target_tables[] = $row[0]; 
        }   
        if($tables !== false) 
        { 
            $target_tables = array_intersect( $target_tables, $tables); 
        }
        foreach($target_tables as $table)
        {
            $result         =   $mysqli->query('SELECT * FROM '.$table);  
            $fields_amount  =   $result->field_count;  
            $rows_num=$mysqli->affected_rows;     
            $res            =   $mysqli->query('SHOW CREATE TABLE '.$table); 
            $TableMLine     =   $res->fetch_row();
            $content        = (!isset($content) ?  '' : $content) . "\n\n".$TableMLine[1].";\n\n";

            for ($i = 0, $st_counter = 0; $i < $fields_amount;   $i++, $st_counter=0) 
            {
                while($row = $result->fetch_row())  
                { //when started (and every after 100 command cycle):
                    if ($st_counter%100 == 0 || $st_counter == 0 )  
                    {
                            $content .= "\nINSERT INTO ".$table." VALUES";
                    }
                    $content .= "\n(";
                    for($j=0; $j<$fields_amount; $j++)  
                    { 
                        $row[$j] = str_replace("\n","\\n", addslashes($row[$j]) ); 
                        if (isset($row[$j]))
                        {
                            $content .= '"'.$row[$j].'"' ; 
                        }
                        else 
                        {   
                            $content .= '""';
                        }     
                        if ($j<($fields_amount-1))
                        {
                                $content.= ',';
                        }      
                    }
                    $content .=")";
                    //every after 100 command cycle [or at last line] ....p.s. but should be inserted 1 cycle eariler
                    if ( (($st_counter+1)%100==0 && $st_counter!=0) || $st_counter+1==$rows_num) 
                    {   
                        $content .= ";";
                    } 
                    else 
                    {
                        $content .= ",";
                    } 
                    $st_counter=$st_counter+1;
                }
            } $content .="\n\n\n";
        }
        //$backup_name = $backup_name ? $backup_name : $name."___(".date('H-i-s')."_".date('d-m-Y').")__rand".rand(1,11111111).".sql";
        $backup_name = $backup_name ? $backup_name : $name.".sql";
        header('Content-Type: application/octet-stream');   
        header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: Binary"); 
        header("Content-disposition: attachment; filename=\"".$backup_name."\"");  
        echo $content; exit;
    }
?>