How do you actually create a SQL Database file?

Hi there Alex!

There are at least three common options.

1) phpmyadmin -> (with visual friendly interface)

2) mysql.exe ->(through console and without user friendly interface).

3) Inside your code editor.

Faster is console of course, because you are interacting with Database Mechanism directly without any graphical interface. But in this case you need to know commands to interact with it.

Here is small example for your question(in this test case i'm using xampp that is installed on windows 10), but this commands can be used on Unix like systems also:

D:\>mysql -u user_name -p

After this you can list all your database(and see if the database already exist). This command can be skipped. But if you want to see the whole picture you will need it.

MariaDB [user_name]> show databases;
+--------------------+
| Database           |
+--------------------+
| tests              |
+--------------------+

After this, we can create new database and check if it already exist.

MariaDB [user_name]> create database if not exists `new_test`;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.07 sec)

MariaDB [user_name]> show databases;
+--------------------+
| Database           |
+--------------------+
| new_test           |
| tests              |
+--------------------+

To exit mysql console, type next:

MariaDB [user_name]>exit;

In order to export, and create new_test.sql file. Type this command.

D:\>mysqldump -u root -p new_test > test.sql

This command will create dump with all tables, properties and data for them. In this case file will be save in

D:\>test.sql

But the most easiest way, is to create it in your code editor =) And write next commands(but before importing all your changes you need to be sure that you created database before):

create table `new_table` (
 id INT,
 name VARCHAR(256)
) engine=MyISAM;

INSERT INTO `new_table` (`id`, `name`) VALUES (1, 'your_name');

After this, you can import your code inside created DB;

D:\>mysqldump -u root -p new_test < test.sql

Best regards.

Thanks this was VERY helpful!