ItemBatcher - Amazon Step Functions
Fields to specify item batching
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ItemBatcher

The ItemBatcher field is a JSON object, which specifies to process a group of items in a single child workflow execution. Use batching when processing large CSV files or JSON arrays, or large sets of Amazon S3 objects.

The following example shows the syntax of the ItemBatcher field. In the following syntax, the maximum number of items that each child workflow execution should process is set to 100.

{
  "ItemBatcher": {
    "MaxItemsPerBatch": 100
  }
}

By default, each item in a dataset is passed as input to individual child workflow executions. For example, assume you specify a JSON file as input that contains the following array:

[
  {
    "verdict": "true",
    "statement_date": "6/11/2008",
    "statement_source": "speech"
  },
  {
    "verdict": "false",
    "statement_date": "6/7/2022",
    "statement_source": "television"
  },
  {
    "verdict": "true",
    "statement_date": "5/18/2016",
    "statement_source": "news"
  },
  ...
]

For the given input, each child workflow execution receives an array item as its input. The following example shows the input of a child workflow execution:

{
  "verdict": "true",
  "statement_date": "6/11/2008",
  "statement_source": "speech"
}

To help optimize the performance and cost of your processing job, select a batch size that balances the number of items against the items processing time. If you use batching, Step Functions adds the items to an Items array. It then passes the array as input to each child workflow execution. The following example shows a batch of two items passed as input to a child workflow execution:

{
  "Items": [
    {
      "verdict": "true",
      "statement_date": "6/11/2008",
      "statement_source": "speech"
    },
    {
      "verdict": "false",
      "statement_date": "6/7/2022",
      "statement_source": "television"
    }
  ]
}
Tip

To learn more about using the ItemBatcher field in your workflows, try the following tutorials and workshop:

Fields to specify item batching

To batch items, specify the maximum number of items to batch, the maximum batch size, or both. You must specify one of these values to batch items.

Max items per batch

Specifies the maximum number of items that each child workflow execution processes. The interpreter limits the number of items batched in the Items array to this value. If you specify both a batch number and size, the interpreter reduces the number of items in a batch to avoid exceeding the specified batch size limit.

If you don't specify this value but provide a value for maximum batch size, Step Functions processes as many items as possible in each child workflow execution without exceeding the maximum batch size in bytes.

For example, imagine you run an execution with an input JSON file that contains 1130 nodes. If you specify a maximum items value for each batch of 100, Step Functions creates 12 batches. Of these, 11 batches contain 100 items each, while the twelfth batch contains the remaining 30 items.

Alternatively, you can specify the maximum items for each batch as a reference path to an existing key-value pair in your Distributed Map state input. This path must resolve to a positive integer.

For example, given the following input:

{
  "maxBatchItems": 500
}

You can specify the maximum number of items to batch using a reference path as follows:

{
  ...
  "Map": {
    "Type": "Map",
    "MaxConcurrency": 2000,
    "ItemBatcher": {
      "MaxItemsPerBatchPath": "$.maxBatchItems"
    }
    ...
    ...
  }
}
Important

You can specify either the MaxItemsPerBatch or the MaxItemsPerBatchPath sub-field, but not both.

Max KBs per batch

Specifies the maximum size of a batch in bytes, up to 256 KBs. If you specify both a maximum batch number and size, Step Functions reduces the number of items in a batch to avoid exceeding the specified batch size limit.

Alternatively, you can specify the maximum batch size as a reference path to an existing key-value pair in your Distributed Map state input. This path must resolve to a positive integer.

Note

If you use batching and don't specify a maximum batch size, the interpreter processes as many items it can process up to 256 KB in each child workflow execution.

For example, given the following input:

{
  "batchSize": 131072
}

You can specify the maximum batch size using a reference path as follows:

{
  ...
  "Map": {
    "Type": "Map",
    "MaxConcurrency": 2000,
    "ItemBatcher": {
      "MaxInputBytesPerBatchPath": "$.batchSize"
    }
    ...
    ...
  }
}
Important

You can specify either the MaxInputBytesPerBatch or the MaxInputBytesPerBatchPath sub-field, but not both.

Batch input

Optionally, you can also specify a fixed JSON input to include in each batch passed to each child workflow execution. Step Functions merges this input with the input for each individual child workflow executions. For example, given the following fixed input of a fact check date on an array of items:

"ItemBatcher": {
    "BatchInput": {
        "factCheck": "December 2022"
    }
}

Each child workflow execution receives the following as input:

{
  "BatchInput": {
    "factCheck": "December 2022"
  },
  "Items": [
    {
      "verdict": "true",
      "statement_date": "6/11/2008",
      "statement_source": "speech"
    },
    {
      "verdict": "false",
      "statement_date": "6/7/2022",
      "statement_source": "television"
    },
    ...
  ]
}