include table definition information (CREATE TABLE) for exported tables

It is possible to export/import tables, or to recover only a subset of tables using Xtrabackup. In order to use a table which has been exported by Xtrabackup, ALTER TABLE {DISCARD|IMPORT} TABLESPACE is required, which requires an empty table definition.

In a disaster recovery situation (such as a dropped table), the original CREATE TABLE statement may not be available.

I suggest that during the backup phase when .frm files are copied, to also collect CREATE TABLE statements for the tables that are being backed up, and write them out to a single metadata file (xtrabackup_table_metadata maybe).

The metadata file can then be used to restore the table definition before calling ALTER TABLE ... TABLESPACE.

--Justin