How to add items in DynamoDB via console? - amazon-dynamodb

Question

I am looking to add some items into DynamoDB via console. (Please see screenshot below). When I click the "Save" button, nothing is happening. No new items are getting created. I also checked the DynamoDB JSON checkbox to convert the JSON into DynamoDB compatible JSON and clicked save button again, but nothing is happening. Can someone please advise, what am I doing wrong ? There are no error messages either.

Answer 1

You haven't provided your table definition so it's difficult to say exactly what a valid item for your table would look like but I can tell you for sure that:
1) You shouldn't be creating an array of JSON objects: each item you create must be an individual valid JSON object. Like so:
{
"sub": 1234,
"EventID": ["B213", "B314"]
}
2) Each item you create must include attributes matching the item schema for your table. This means that if your table has just a partition key defined then each item must include one attribute whose name matches the name of the partition key. If the table has both partition and sort key then each item you create must include at least two attributes, one matching the partition key, the other matching the sort key. And finally, the partition and sort keys must be string or numeric.
Assuming your table has a partition key called sub and no sort key, then the item example above would work.
update
Based on the comment it sounds like the OP was looking for a way to insert multiple items in a single operation. This not possible with the console, and actually it goes deeper than that: Dynamo fundamentally operates one a single item at a time for write operations. It is of course possible to batch up to 25 item writes using the API but that is just a convenience.
If you need to add multiple items to your table, consider writing a small script using the AWS CLI or the API. It’s is relatively easy to do!

Answer 2

The scripting solution looks something like this:
aws-dynamodb-upload-json.sh
#!/bin/sh
set -e
# parse
if [[ $# -eq 0 ]]; then set -- "--help"; fi
if [[ "$1" = "--help" ]]; then
echo "Usage:"
echo " aws-dynamodb-upload-json {table-name} {file.json}"
exit 1
fi
# config
AWS_DYNAMODB_UPLOAD_TABLE_NAME=$1
AWS_DYNAMODB_UPLOAD_FILE_INPUT=$2
echo "Configuration"
echo "AWS_DYNAMODB_UPLOAD_TABLE_NAME=$AWS_DYNAMODB_UPLOAD_TABLE_NAME"
echo "AWS_DYNAMODB_UPLOAD_FILE_INPUT=$AWS_DYNAMODB_UPLOAD_FILE_INPUT"
# main
jq -c '.[]' < $AWS_DYNAMODB_UPLOAD_FILE_INPUT |
while read -r row
do
echo "Entry: $row"
echo ""
aws dynamodb put-item \
--region us-east-1 \
--table-name $AWS_DYNAMODB_UPLOAD_TABLE_NAME \
--item \
"$row"
done
This does rely on the aws CLI and the jq CLI to be installed and on your $PATH.
Hopefully AWS adds an easier way to do this VIA the web interface someday.