database backup

[scorpioy]

I'm using this to backup my database:
mysqldump --tab=D:/db_back_up --opt myDB

Then I got a .sql file which contains table definition. I also got .txt file which has information for each row in the table in a format that looks like the result of query the * from the table.

I thought it would generate the sql format so that I can pipe it to the database directly, just like generated table definition file. Does anyone know why would it be like this? Is there a way that can generate table row information in sql format (so that in case my database crashes, I can remake one pretty quick by just piping those backup files into the database)?

Thanks

[devinemke]

/path/to/mysqldump --host=<host> --user=<user> --password=<password> databasename >outputfile.sql

the documentation is here.