sql errors in command line nightmare

[mojito]

Dear fellow freaks

I want simply to backup a database of about 3Mb using phpmyadmin fails, cant work out why, so i turn to putty and command line.

using every single thing i can think of i keep getting "there is an error in your syntax at line 1" i have tried everything i can think of.

What would be a foolproof string to type in if im logged in and already in mysql->

I realised i need the comma at the end of each line, now why is that not expalined in the documentation (mysql.com) ? are we like just supposed to know mysql??

I tried [code]mysqldump --tab=/usr/home/dfrty/www/htdocs/backup[/code]

it cant be any easier so why is it telling me there si syntax error?

grrrrr [img src=\"style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/excl.gif\" style=\"vertical-align:middle\" emoid=\":excl:\" border=\"0\" alt=\"excl.gif\" /]

I just found out there is BLOB data and this is why its so large. Im tempted to try to find the actual file in the db and just copy that.

[fenway]

I can't remember the syntax off-hand, but blobs can be tricky; there was a flag added in some version of MySQL (--hex-blob, or something like that), but I can't recall.