Cannot output MySQL data to file

According to MySQL Documentation on SELECT ... INTO OUTFILE

Any file created by INTO OUTFILE or INTO DUMPFILE is writable by all users on the server host. The reason for this is that the MySQL server cannot create a file that is owned by anyone other than the user under whose account it is running. (You should never run mysqld as root for this and other reasons.) The file thus must be world-writable so that you can manipulate its contents.

You should output the SELECT INTO OUTFILE to /var/lib/mysql as follows

SELECT * FROM data INTO OUTFILE 'data.csv';

Of course, you need to make sure you have FILE permission on gs@localhost.

There are two ways to have this permission given

METHOD #1

GRANT FILE ON *.* TO 'gs'@'localhost';

METHOD #2

UPDATE mysql.user SET File_priv = 'Y' WHERE user='gs' AND host='localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

UPDATE 2012-05-01 07:09 EDT

To give yourself FILE privilege, do the following:

service mysql restart --skip-networking --skip-grant-tables
mysql <hit enter>
UPDATE mysql.user SET File_priv = 'Y' WHERE user='gs' AND host='localhost';
exit
service mysql restart