migration from one mysql database to another

[alex rongas]

Hello,
I am kind of newbie, also i am not sure if i post to the correct place. Appologies for this..

I have a database, on mysql, used from a program of mine. I wish to move to a next version of this program. However, this new program, has some extra tables/elements. Is there a way, to take the data of the original database, export them on some format i.e. CSV and then import the data to the new version (of the database) by including default values to the table entries that do not exist in the "CSV" data file?
If not, is there a way to export data to a CSV format and then parse them by myself?

Last...(sorry for many and long questions..), how is this done in reall comersial applications? when migrating from one version to another, how is this done in order not to make the CSV parser (that i mention) for every version towards every version?

Thanx a lot in advance!!! :-)