Export Database to CSV

This won't work since it requires special privileges which can't be granted to normal users.
So, the best way to dump the file as csv is to use phpmyadmin's export functionality.

This may be the same reason for the "access denied" error for this:

SELECT id, first_name

INTO OUTFILE 'names.tab' FIELDS TERMINATED BY 't' LINES TERMINATED BY 'n'

FROM names;


ERROR 1045 (28000) at line 1: Access denied for user 'foo_bar'@'localhost' (using password: YES)

It is possible to do this successfully using PHP:

$ vi getNames.php  
# Type the follwing into the file.    
<?php

$dbConn = new mysqli("127.0.0.1", "my_name", "my\_password", "my\_database");

$names = $dbConn->query("SELECT id, first_name FROM names;");

// Open a file for the delimited records.
$outer = fopen("names.tab", "w");

// For each row.
while ( $row = $names->fetch_row() ) {
  // Compose a line with tabs between fields.
  $lineOut = implode("\t", $row) . "\n";
  // Write the line to the file.
  fwrite($outer, $lineOut);
}

fclose($outer);

exit();
?>

$ php -f getNames.php

I ran into a problem using PHPMyAdmin for a large CSV export where my mysql connection kept getting cut because the download didn't finish in time.

I solved it by accessing PHPMyAdmin using lynx (text based browser) from my shell on the same webfaction server.

why not simply use a tool like mysqldumper?