mysqldump helps you filter the data you back up. Suppose you want to take a backup of employees who joined after 2000:
shell> mysqldump --databases employees --tables employees --databases employees --tables employees --where="hire_date>'2000-01-01'" > employees_after_2000.sql
You can use the LIMIT clause to limit the results:
shell> mysqldump --databases employees --tables employees --databases employees --tables employees --where="hire_date >= '2000-01-01' LIMIT 10" > employees_after_2000_limit_10.sql
