Is it possible to mysqldump a subset of a database required to reproduce a query?
mysqldump has the --where option to execute a WHERE clause for a given table.

Although it is not possible to mysqldump a join query, you can export specific rows from each table so that every row fetched from each table will be involved in the join later on.

For your given query, you would need to mysqldump three times:

First, mysqldump all table3 rows with name in ('fee','fi','fo','fum'):

mysqldump -u... -p... --where="name in ('fee','fi','fo','fum')" mydb table3 &gt; table3.sql


Next, mysqldump all table2 rows that have matching table3_id values from the first mysqldump:

mysqldump -u... -p... --lock-all-tables --where="table3_id in (select id from table3 where name in ('fee','fi','fo','fum'))" mydb table2 &gt; table2.sql


Then, mysqldump all table1 rows that have matching table1_id values from the second mysqldump:

mysqldump -u... -p... --lock-all-tables --where="id in (select table1_id from table2 where table3_id in (select id from table3 where name in ('fee','fi','fo','fum')))" mydb table1 &gt; table1.sql


Note: Since the second and third mysqldumps require using more than one table, --lock-all-tables must be used.

Create your new database:

mysqladmin -u... -p... mysqladmin create newdb


Finally, load the three mysqldumps into another database and attempt the join there in the new database.

mysql -u... -p... -D newdb &lt; table1.sql
mysql -u... -p... -D newdb &lt; table2.sql
mysql -u... -p... -D newdb &lt; table3.sql


In mysql client, run your join query

mysql&gt; use newdb
mysql&gt; select table1.id, table1.level, table2.name, table2.level 
       from table1 join table2 on table1.id = table2.table1_id 
       join table3 on table3.id = table2.table3_id
       where table3.name in ('fee', 'fi', 'fo', 'fum'); 


Give it a Try !!!

WARNING : If not indexed correctly, the second and third mysqldumps may take forever !!!

Just in case, index the following columns:

ALTER TABLE table2 ADD INDEX (table1_id);
ALTER TABLE table2 ADD INDEX (table3_id);
ALTER TABLE table3 ADD INDEX (name,id);


I'll assume id is the primary key of table3.