difference between mysql and mysqldump

Question

I am going to importi a database.. (db.sql)

I will use something like:

mysql -u root -p db < db.sql

Can you tell me what the difference is between this and mysqldump?

Thanks

Answer 1

mysqldump is the export tool with which you would create the file to import, e.g.

mysqldump -u root -p db > db-export.sql

The resulting file will consist largely of SQL CREATE statements, followed by INSERT statements.

mysql is the interactive MySQL client, which will also happily take a file full of SQL on stdin and carry out those queries -- in this case, importing the exported dump.

Answer 2

mysqldump is for export/backup databases:

mysqldump -u root -p db > db.sql