An alternative to mysqldump is the SELECT ... INTO form of SELECT, which allows results to be written to a file (http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/select-into.html).
Some example syntax from the above help page is:
SELECT a,b,a+b INTO OUTFILE '/tmp/result.txt'
FIELDS TERMINATED BY ',' OPTIONALLY ENCLOSED BY '"'
LINES TERMINATED BY '\n'
FROM test_table;
Data can then be loaded back in using LOAD DATA INFILE (http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/load-data.html).
Again the page gives an example:
LOAD DATA INFILE '/tmp/test.txt' INTO TABLE test
FIELDS TERMINATED BY ',' LINES STARTING BY 'xxx';
And with a complete worked example pair:
When you use SELECT ... INTO OUTFILE in tandem with LOAD DATA INFILE to write data from a database into a file and then read the file back into the database later, the field- and line-handling options for both statements must match. Otherwise, LOAD DATA INFILE will not interpret the contents of the file properly. Suppose that you use SELECT ... INTO OUTFILE to write a file with fields delimited by commas:
SELECT * INTO OUTFILE 'data.txt' FIELDS TERMINATED BY ',' FROM table2;
To read the comma-delimited file back in, the correct statement would be:
LOAD DATA INFILE 'data.txt' INTO TABLE table2 FIELDS TERMINATED BY ',';