title: MySQLdump results in lots of commented lines, no real content
body: <p>I am trying to write a PHP program to automatically created backups of MySQL tables as sql files on the server:</p>
  
  <pre>
  
  $backup = "$path/$tablename.sql";
  $table = "mydbname.mytablename";
  
  exec(
    sprintf(
      '/usr/bin/mysqldump --host=%s --user=%s --password=%s %s --quick --lock-tables --add-drop-table > %s',
      $host,
      $user,
      $password,
      $table,
      $backup
    )
  );
  </pre>
  
  <p>All that I get in the resulting .sql file is this:</p>
  
  <pre>
  -- MySQL dump 10.10
  --
  -- Host: localhost    Database: mydbname.mytablename
  -- ------------------------------------------------------
  -- Server version   5.0.27
  
  /*!40101 SET @OLD_CHARACTER_SET_CLIENT=@@CHARACTER_SET_CLIENT */;
  /*!40101 SET @OLD_CHARACTER_SET_RESULTS=@@CHARACTER_SET_RESULTS */;
  /*!40101 SET @OLD_COLLATION_CONNECTION=@@COLLATION_CONNECTION */;
  /*!40101 SET NAMES utf8 */;
  /*!40103 SET @OLD_TIME_ZONE=@@TIME_ZONE */;
  /*!40103 SET TIME_ZONE='+00:00' */;
  /*!40014 SET @OLD_UNIQUE_CHECKS=@@UNIQUE_CHECKS, UNIQUE_CHECKS=0 */;
  /*!40014 SET @OLD_FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=@@FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS, FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=0 */;
  /*!40101 SET @OLD_SQL_MODE=@@SQL_MODE, SQL_MODE='NO_AUTO_VALUE_ON_ZERO' */;
  /*!40111 SET @OLD_SQL_NOTES=@@SQL_NOTES, SQL_NOTES=0 */;
  </pre>
  
  <p>It seems fishy that the results list Database:mydbname.mytablename.</p>
  
  <p>I don't know where to start looking. My host, in helping my set up the program initially, said I would need to deactivate safe_mode (was already done) and give access to the binary (I don't know what this means).</p>
  
  <p>Since the host takes two days to reply every time I ask a question, I'd like to resolve this myself if possible.</p>