MySQL Table Data Lost but structure remains

>>I ran --> mysql -u -p DBNAME > [Path of .sql file].

You redirected the output of MySQL over the SQL file.

Looks like you should have used "<" instead of ">".  If you didn't create a backup of the .sql file before running that MySQL command then I'm afraid it is gone.  Check with your System Administrator to see if they are running some form of file versioning on that folder that might save copies of older versions in the background for you.

Confirm that is the command you executed.

This command...

mysql -u -p DBNAME > [Path of .sql file]

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Would have destroyed your backup file. Hopefully you meant < instead of > as your redirection operator.

Tip: I always use cat or pv piped into mysql to load data, so I avoid accidental backup over writes.

If you did this then the data should still be in the database..... Only the backup is empty....with startup info from mysql).
(Without any other commands...)

mysqldump does not remove data....  or drop tables.
It write the requested databases to standard output.
The >pathof.sql  saves that data intot the file pathof.sql


To restore the data use:
mysql <pathof.sql

Which will cause mysql to read the data from pathof.sql instead of standard input.

So try again:

mysqldump -u -p DBNAME >pathof.sql
#and then:
mysql -u -p DBNAME <pathof.sql

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the mysql -u -p DBNAME >pathof.sql  did destroy the file pathof.sql only.

Hi,

If your database has the bin-log enabled and you have all bin-logs available then you could do a point-in-time recovery on your data.

https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/mysqlbinlog.html
https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/point-in-time-recovery.html
http://www.mostlychris.com/blog/2009/07/31/restoring-from-mysql-binlog/
https://www.vpsinfo.com/tutorial/backup-mysql-database/

Regards,
     Tomas Helgi