Any way of exporting/saving character data?

[Drawde]

Is there an easy way (using mysql) to export the DB character data to a file then import it back later? I'm often having to re-import the DB due to changes and bugfixes with world data etc. but it's annoying to lose all my characters when I do so. I'm currently trying to play the game properly starting with a level-1 character (a good way of checking that loot, merchant lists etc. are balanced) so this would be very useful. I don't really have much experience with the MySQL command line interface however.