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Working with Items in DynamoDB

In DynamoDB, an item is a collection of attributes, each of which has a name and a value. An attribute value can be a scalar, set, or document type. For more information, see Naming Rules and Data Types in the Amazon DynamoDB Developer Guide.

Retrieve (Get) an Item from a Table

Call the AmazonDynamoDB’s getItem method and pass it a GetItemRequest object with the table name and primary key value of the item you want. It returns a GetItemResult object.

You can use the returned GetItemResult object’s getItem() method to retrieve a Map of key (String) and value (AttributeValue) pairs that are associated with the item.

Imports

import com.amazonaws.AmazonServiceException;
import com.amazonaws.services.dynamodbv2.AmazonDynamoDB;
import com.amazonaws.services.dynamodbv2.AmazonDynamoDBClientBuilder;
import com.amazonaws.services.dynamodbv2.model.AttributeValue;
import com.amazonaws.services.dynamodbv2.model.GetItemRequest;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;

Code

HashMap<String,AttributeValue> key_to_get =
    new HashMap<String,AttributeValue>();

key_to_get.put("DATABASE_NAME", new AttributeValue(name));

GetItemRequest request = null;
if (projection_expression != null) {
    request = new GetItemRequest()
        .withKey(key_to_get)
        .withTableName(table_name)
        .withProjectionExpression(projection_expression);
} else {
    request = new GetItemRequest()
        .withKey(key_to_get)
        .withTableName(table_name);
}

final AmazonDynamoDB ddb = AmazonDynamoDBClientBuilder.defaultClient();

try {
    Map<String,AttributeValue> returned_item =
       ddb.getItem(request).getItem();
    if (returned_item != null) {
        Set<String> keys = returned_item.keySet();
        for (String key : keys) {
            System.out.format("%s: %s\n",
                    key, returned_item.get(key).toString());
        }
    } else {
        System.out.format("No item found with the key %s!\n", name);
    }
} catch (AmazonServiceException e) {
    System.err.println(e.getErrorMessage());
    System.exit(1);

See the complete example on GitHub.

Add a New Item to a Table

Create a Map of key-value pairs that represent the item’s attributes. These must include values for the table’s primary key fields. If the item identified by the primary key already exists, its fields are updated by the request.

Imports

import com.amazonaws.AmazonServiceException;
import com.amazonaws.services.dynamodbv2.AmazonDynamoDB;
import com.amazonaws.services.dynamodbv2.AmazonDynamoDBClientBuilder;
import com.amazonaws.services.dynamodbv2.model.AttributeValue;
import com.amazonaws.services.dynamodbv2.model.ResourceNotFoundException;
import java.util.ArrayList;

Code

HashMap<String,AttributeValue> item_values =
    new HashMap<String,AttributeValue>();

item_values.put("Name", new AttributeValue(name));

for (String[] field : extra_fields) {
    item_values.put(field[0], new AttributeValue(field[1]));
}

final AmazonDynamoDB ddb = AmazonDynamoDBClientBuilder.defaultClient();

try {
    ddb.putItem(table_name, item_values);
} catch (ResourceNotFoundException e) {
    System.err.format("Error: The table \"%s\" can't be found.\n", table_name);
    System.err.println("Be sure that it exists and that you've typed its name correctly!");
    System.exit(1);
} catch (AmazonServiceException e) {
    System.err.println(e.getMessage());
    System.exit(1);

See the complete example on GitHub.

Update an Existing Item in a Table

You can update an attribute for an item that already exists in a table by using the AmazonDynamoDB’s updateItem method, providing a table name, primary key value, and a map of fields to update.

Imports

import com.amazonaws.AmazonServiceException;
import com.amazonaws.services.dynamodbv2.AmazonDynamoDB;
import com.amazonaws.services.dynamodbv2.AmazonDynamoDBClientBuilder;
import com.amazonaws.services.dynamodbv2.model.AttributeAction;
import com.amazonaws.services.dynamodbv2.model.AttributeValue;
import com.amazonaws.services.dynamodbv2.model.AttributeValueUpdate;
import com.amazonaws.services.dynamodbv2.model.ResourceNotFoundException;
import java.util.ArrayList;

Code

HashMap<String,AttributeValue> item_key =
   new HashMap<String,AttributeValue>();

item_key.put("Name", new AttributeValue(name));

HashMap<String,AttributeValueUpdate> updated_values =
    new HashMap<String,AttributeValueUpdate>();

for (String[] field : extra_fields) {
    updated_values.put(field[0], new AttributeValueUpdate(
                new AttributeValue(field[1]), AttributeAction.PUT));
}

final AmazonDynamoDB ddb = AmazonDynamoDBClientBuilder.defaultClient();

try {
    ddb.updateItem(table_name, item_key, updated_values);
} catch (ResourceNotFoundException e) {
    System.err.println(e.getMessage());
    System.exit(1);
} catch (AmazonServiceException e) {
    System.err.println(e.getMessage());
    System.exit(1);

See the complete example on GitHub.

Use the DynamoDBMapper class

The Amazon SDK for Java provides a DynamoDBMapper class, allowing you to map your client-side classes to Amazon DynamoDB tables. To use the DynamoDBMapper class, you define the relationship between items in a DynamoDB table and their corresponding object instances in your code by using annotations (as shown in the following code example). The DynamoDBMapper class enables you to access your tables; perform various create, read, update, and delete (CRUD) operations; and execute queries.

Imports

import com.amazonaws.services.dynamodbv2.AmazonDynamoDB;
import com.amazonaws.services.dynamodbv2.AmazonDynamoDBClientBuilder;
import com.amazonaws.services.dynamodbv2.datamodeling.DynamoDBAttribute;
import com.amazonaws.services.dynamodbv2.datamodeling.DynamoDBHashKey;
import com.amazonaws.services.dynamodbv2.datamodeling.DynamoDBMapper;
import com.amazonaws.services.dynamodbv2.datamodeling.DynamoDBTable;
import com.amazonaws.services.dynamodbv2.datamodeling.DynamoDBRangeKey;
import com.amazonaws.services.dynamodbv2.model.AmazonDynamoDBException;

Code

The following Java code example shows you how to add content to the Music table by using the DynamoDBMapper class. After the content is added to the table, notice that an item is loaded by using the Partition and Sort keys. Then the Awards item is updated. For information on creating the Music table, see Create a Table in the Amazon DynamoDB Developer Guide.

       AmazonDynamoDB client = AmazonDynamoDBClientBuilder.standard().build();
       MusicItems items = new MusicItems();

       try{
           // Add new content to the Music table
           items.setArtist(artist);
           items.setSongTitle(songTitle);
           items.setAlbumTitle(albumTitle);
           items.setAwards(Integer.parseInt(awards)); //convert to an int

           // Save the item
           DynamoDBMapper mapper = new DynamoDBMapper(client);
           mapper.save(items);

           // Load an item based on the Partition Key and Sort Key
           // Both values need to be passed to the mapper.load method
           String artistName = artist;
           String songQueryTitle = songTitle;

           // Retrieve the item
           MusicItems itemRetrieved = mapper.load(MusicItems.class, artistName, songQueryTitle);
           System.out.println("Item retrieved:");
           System.out.println(itemRetrieved);

           // Modify the Award value
           itemRetrieved.setAwards(2);
           mapper.save(itemRetrieved);
           System.out.println("Item updated:");
           System.out.println(itemRetrieved);

           System.out.print("Done");
       } catch (AmazonDynamoDBException e) {
           e.getStackTrace();
       }
   }

   @DynamoDBTable(tableName="Music")
   public static class MusicItems {

       //Set up Data Members that correspond to columns in the Music table
       private String artist;
       private String songTitle;
       private String albumTitle;
       private int awards;

       @DynamoDBHashKey(attributeName="Artist")
       public String getArtist() {
           return this.artist;
       }

       public void setArtist(String artist) {
           this.artist = artist;
       }

       @DynamoDBRangeKey(attributeName="SongTitle")
       public String getSongTitle() {
           return this.songTitle;
       }

       public void setSongTitle(String title) {
           this.songTitle = title;
       }

       @DynamoDBAttribute(attributeName="AlbumTitle")
       public String getAlbumTitle() {
           return this.albumTitle;
       }

       public void setAlbumTitle(String title) {
           this.albumTitle = title;
       }

       @DynamoDBAttribute(attributeName="Awards")
       public int getAwards() {
           return this.awards;
       }

       public void setAwards(int awards) {
           this.awards = awards;
       }
   }

See the complete example on GitHub.

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