mysql database backup (different file sizes)

I hope someone can shed some light on this. I only have one mysql database.

When I view the database via Dreamhost's Webpanel under Manage MySql it states my database is 229mb in size.

When I go into phpmyadmin and export the database (uncompressed) as a .sql file, the database comes out to be 134mb. Looking at the list of tables in phpmyadmin and counting their sizes it seems to come close to this size.

When I log in via shell and use this command:

mysqldump --opt -uusername -ppassword -h yourMySQLHostname dbname > filename.sql

the database comes out to be 78 megabytes.

Furthermore any type of compression via Phpmyadmin's export does not work.

Any clues on what is the correct size???

Edited by digital_xpress on 05/26/08 11:17 PM (server time).

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When I view the database via Dreamhost's Webpanel under Manage MySql it states my database is 229mb in size.

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This is the original size of your database. Including table structures and data.

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When I go into phpmyadmin and export the database (uncompressed) as a .sql file, the database comes out to be 134mb.

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When you export a databse, the .sql file only contains the scripts to create the tables and to insert the data. Of course, it will be much smaller than the origianl database.

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When I log in via shell and use this command:

mysqldump --opt -uusername -ppassword -h yourMySQLHostname dbname > filename.sql

the database comes out to be 78 megabytes.

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I'm not sure about this. This is also a .sql file which contains the installation scripts. I guess it is smaller because there are NO empty lines between the scripts.