A simple little script that backs up the wordpress/mysql database. It requires a ~/.wpbackup file with at least the line "SOURCE_FROM_WP" and "WPLOC=/location/of/wordpress" in it.

wordpress-backup.pl

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;

sub extract_from_config {
        my $filename = shift || die;
        my $variable = shift || die;

        open my $fd, "<$filename" or die "$filename: $!";

        while( <$fd> ){
                chomp;
                if( /define\s*\(\s*\'$variable\'\s*,\s*\'(\S+?)\'/ ){
                        return $1;
                }
        }
        return undef;
}

my ( $WPUN, $WPPW, $WPDB, $WPHN, $WPLOC, $SOURCE_FROM_WP );

if( -e "$ENV{HOME}/.wpbackup" ){
        open my $fd, "<$ENV{HOME}/.wpbackup";

        while( <$fd> ){
                chomp;

                $WPUN = $1 if /^WPUN=(\S+)/;
                $WPDB = $1 if /^WPDB=(\S+)/;
                $WPHN = $1 if /^WPHN=(\S+)/;
                $WPLOC= $1 if /^WPLOC=(\S+)/;

                $SOURCE_FROM_WP = 1 if /^SOURCE_FROM_WP/;
        }
} else {
        die "$ENV{HOME}/.wpbackup: $!";
}

if( $SOURCE_FROM_WP ){
        # Let's look into the wordpress config file for credentials
        die "WPLOC undefined" unless defined $WPLOC;

        die "$WPLOC: $!" unless -d "$WPLOC";
        die "$WPLOC/wp-config.php: $!" unless -e "$WPLOC/wp-config.php";

        $WPUN = extract_from_config( "$WPLOC/wp-config.php" => 'DB_USER' ) or die "Could not find DB_USER in $WPLOC/wp-config.php";
        $WPPW = extract_from_config( "$WPLOC/wp-config.php" => 'DB_PASSWORD' ) or die "Could not find DB_PASSWORD in $WPLOC/wp-config.php";
        $WPHN = extract_from_config( "$WPLOC/wp-config.php" => 'DB_HOST' ) or die "Could not find DB_HOST in $WPLOC/wp-config.php";
        $WPDB = extract_from_config( "$WPLOC/wp-config.php" => 'DB_NAME' ) or die "Could not find DB_NAME in $WPLOC/wp-config.php";
}

die "WPUN undefined" unless defined $WPUN;
die "WPPW undefined" unless defined $WPPW;
die "WPDB undefined" unless defined $WPDB;
die "WPHN undefined" unless defined $WPHN;
die "WPLOC undefined" unless defined $WPLOC;

# Execute the MYSQLDUMP
my $command = "mysqldump --single-transaction --add-drop-table -h $WPHN -u $WPUN -p$WPPW $WPDB | bzip2 -c > $ENV{HOME}/wordpress-backup.sql.bz2";
`$command`;