Backing up and transfering a database

[tomharto]

I need to backup a full database and copy it over. Ill be using phpMyAdmin for this.

Im just curious if there is a "best" format to use for exporting - importing a database or are they all pretty similar?

[webdev1958]

I haven't used phpMyAdmin for ages, but like SQLyog hopefully it will have an export option to export the database in full as an sql script (with or without the data records). You can then run the sql script in another database's instance to create a copy of the original db there.

[tomharto]

I just looked and there is a SQL option, so i tried that and that seems to have exported everything as a SQL script, including all the data. Thanks