Any option for mysqldump to ignore databases for backup?

Back on Dec 16, 2011, I answered the question How do you mysqldump specific table(s)?

I collected all tables not including a certain set of table names.

Using the same principles, you could have collect all the database names from the metadata table information_schema.schemata that you want mysqldump'd, create a query to return that list, then use that list of databases to formulate the mysqldump command.

DATABASES_TO_EXCLUDE="db1 db2 db3"
EXCLUSION_LIST="'information_schema','mysql'"
for DB in `echo "${DATABASES_TO_EXCLUDE}"`
do
    EXCLUSION_LIST="${EXCLUSION_LIST},'${DB}'"
done
SQLSTMT="SELECT schema_name FROM information_schema.schemata"
SQLSTMT="${SQLSTMT} WHERE schema_name NOT IN (${EXCLUSION_LIST})"
MYSQLDUMP_DATABASES="--databases"
for DB in `mysql -ANe"${SQLSTMT}"`
do
    MYSQLDUMP_DATABASES="${MYSQLDUMP_DATABASES} ${DB}"
done
MYSQLDUMP_OPTIONS="--routines --triggers"
mysqldump ${MYSQLDUMP_OPTIONS} ${MYSQLDUMP_DATABASES} > MySQLDatabases.sql

All you need to do is put the databases you do not want mysqldump'd into DATABASES_TO_EXCLUDE

Give it a Try !!!

Use grep to exclude databases you don't want:

candidates=$(echo "show databases" | mysql | grep -Ev "^(Database|mysql|performance_schema|information_schema)$")
mysqldump --databases $candidates 

From looking at https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19354870/bash-command-line-and-input-limit it seems like you'll be able to handle long lines. Otherwise you can always

candidates=$(echo "show databases" | mysql | grep -Ev "^(Database|mysql|performance_schema|information_schema)$")
for candidate in $candidates[*]; do
    mysqldump $candidate 
done

I don't think it is possible, but you can try these solution which you will have to type the names of all the databases you want to dump.

mysqldump -u root -password --databases db1 db2 db3 ... db36 > mydb_dump.sql

Let me know if the solution helps.