I wrote a wrapper for DocClient which I think some people might find useful. The main purpose is to simplify retreiving and inserting data, especially for Lambda functions that call DynamoDB. You can see the code here.
It requires the aws-sdk, lodash and uuid, which you can download with:
npm install aws-sdk lodash uuid
It also assumes that you use id
as your main key, which is most likely the case.
Let's see how it works, maybe you find it interesting!
Constructor
You need to start a new instance of the class with the name of the table:
const posts = new DynamoTable('posts', 'us-east-1'); // the region is optional
One of the advantages of storing the name in the class is that you can use the same variable for both production and development.
const posts = new DynamoTable(isProd ? 'posts' : 'dev_posts', 'us-east-1');
Methods
This instance now contains the following methods:
addItem(item)
updateItem(item)
deleteItem(id)
getItem(id)
batchGetItem(ids)
batchWriteItem(ids)
scan({ nextToken, limit, filter })
simpleScan(filter)
scanAll(filter)
query(index, queryExpression, nextToken, limit, filter)
simpleQuery(index, queryExpression, filter)
queryAll(index, queryExpression, filter)
Let's see how to use them!
Inserting
You can add single items with addItem
. It will automatically generate an ID if you pass one.
import DynamoTable from './DynamoTable';
const posts = new DynamoTable('posts', 'us-east-1'); // the region is optional
async function main() {
const post = {
title: 'New post',
content: 'I am the body!'
};
const newPost = await posts.addItem(post);
console.log(newPost);
/*
{
id: '7da9576c-a97c-47fc-a884-fbc7fda3ab3a',
title: 'New post',
content: 'I am the body!'
}
*/
}
main();
You can insert multiple items using batchWriteItem
:
import DynamoTable from './DynamoTable';
const posts = new DynamoTable('posts', 'us-east-1'); // the region is optional
async function main() {
const post1 = {
title: 'New post 1',
content: 'I am the body of post 1!'
};
const post2 = {
title: 'New post 2',
content: 'I am the body of post 2!'
};
await posts.batchWriteItem([post1, post2]);
}
main();
Updating
You can update a post using the updateItem
, which allows you to specify the fields you want to update only. It also returns the full item so you can pass it as a response to your API.
import DynamoTable from './DynamoTable';
const posts = new DynamoTable('posts', 'us-east-1'); // the region is optional
async function main() {
const postUpdated = {
id: '7da9576c-a97c-47fc-a884-fbc7fda3ab3a',
title: 'New post updated',
}
const newPost = await posts.updateItem(postUpdated);
console.log(newPost);
/*
{
content: 'I am the body!',
id: '7da9576c-a97c-47fc-a884-fbc7fda3ab3a',
title: 'New post updated'
}
*/
}
main();
Retrieving
The class supports 4 ways of retreiving data: A single item, multiple items, and listing by scanning or querying.
The simplest one is getting a simple item using its ID:
import DynamoTable from './DynamoTable';
const posts = new DynamoTable('posts', 'us-east-1'); // the region is optional
async function main() {
const post = await posts.getItem('7da9576c-a97c-47fc-a884-fbc7fda3ab3a');
console.log(post);
/*
{
content: 'I am the body!',
id: '7da9576c-a97c-47fc-a884-fbc7fda3ab3a',
title: 'New post updated'
}
*/
}
main();
But you can also get a bunch of items using their IDs:
const items = await posts.batchGetItem([
'767311af-b122-420d-9b7f-a5692dbfbd45',
'd7fce7ab-252f-4b66-a1f8-fc940db14f5c',
]);
console.log(items);
/*
[
{
authorId: '1',
content: 'Title 1',
id: '767311af-b122-420d-9b7f-a5692dbfbd45',
title: 'Post 1'
},
{
authorId: '2',
content: 'Title 3',
id: 'd7fce7ab-252f-4b66-a1f8-fc940db14f5c',
title: 'Post 3'
}
]
*/
There are three methods to scan a table. A base scan
method, which is friendly to the way you probably use scan. A simpleScan
method which ignores pagination, and a scanAll
method which will continue to retrieve data until there's nothing more.
The scan
method accepts one parameter with 3 fields: nextToken
, limit
and filter
.
-
nextToken
tells DynamoDB to retrieve items after this key. -
limit
determines the maximum amount of items to retrieve. -
filter
can either be an object like{ key: value }
(for key = value) orexpression
andvalues
(for something likeattribute_not_exists(:example)
)
The method returns items
(an array) and nextToken
(a string or null).
You can retrieve all items from a table like this:
const postsScan = await posts.scan();
console.log(postsScan);
/*
{
items: [
{
content: 'I am the body!',
id: '7da9576c-a97c-47fc-a884-fbc7fda3ab3a',
title: 'New post updated'
},
{
content: 'I am the body of post 1!',
id: '7796b42d-4e20-4cc1-ab85-ca3240da5991',
title: 'New post 1'
},
{
content: 'I am the body of post 2!',
id: 'fb4d00ab-ffd8-473d-8e5f-bb506506ab30',
title: 'New post 2'
}
],
nextToken: null
}
*/
You can do a scanAll
to keep retrieving items until there are no more:
const postsScan = await posts.scanAll();
console.log(postsScan);
/*
[
{
content: 'I am the body!',
id: '7da9576c-a97c-47fc-a884-fbc7fda3ab3a',
title: 'New post updated'
},
{
content: 'I am the body of post 1!',
id: '7796b42d-4e20-4cc1-ab85-ca3240da5991',
title: 'New post 1'
},
{
content: 'I am the body of post 2!',
id: 'fb4d00ab-ffd8-473d-8e5f-bb506506ab30',
title: 'New post 2'
}
]
*/
A simple simpleScan
will return the first batch of scan, without pagination information.
Filtering
Before moving into queries, let's add an "authorId" key to our posts
table so we scan and filter using it.
const postsToInsert = [
{
authorId: '1',
content: 'Title 1',
title: 'Post 1',
},
{
authorId: '1',
content: 'Title 2',
title: 'Post 2',
},
{
authorId: '2',
content: 'Title 3',
title: 'Post 3',
},
{
authorId: '4',
content: 'Title 4',
title: 'Post 4',
},
];
await posts.batchWriteItem(postsToInsert);
We can now scan and filter for "authorId":
const postsByAuthor1 = await posts.scan({ filter: { authorId: '1' } }); // expression would be authorId = 1
console.log(postsByAuthor1);
/*
{
items: [
{
authorId: '1',
content: 'Title 1',
id: '767311af-b122-420d-9b7f-a5692dbfbd45',
title: 'Post 1'
},
{
authorId: '1',
content: 'Title 2',
id: 'a46ec412-1e95-4c9c-a24e-1d4d15092d3f',
title: 'Post 2'
}
],
nextToken: null
}
*/
For more complex, or even custom filters, you can use an expression and values:
const postsByAuthor1 = await posts.scan({
filter: {
expression: 'authorId = :authorId',
values: {
authorId: '1'
}
}
});
console.log(postsByAuthor1);
/*
{
items: [
{
authorId: '1',
content: 'Title 1',
id: '767311af-b122-420d-9b7f-a5692dbfbd45',
title: 'Post 1'
},
{
authorId: '1',
content: 'Title 2',
id: 'a46ec412-1e95-4c9c-a24e-1d4d15092d3f',
title: 'Post 2'
}
],
nextToken: null
}
*/
Querying
Now we can create an index for our 'authorId' field, called 'authorId-index'.
const postsByAuthor1 = await posts.query({
index: 'authorId-index',
queryExpression: { authorId: '1' }
});
console.log(postsByAuthor1);
/*
{
items: [
{
content: 'Title 1',
authorId: '1',
id: '767311af-b122-420d-9b7f-a5692dbfbd45',
title: 'Post 1'
},
{
content: 'Title 2',
authorId: '1',
id: 'a46ec412-1e95-4c9c-a24e-1d4d15092d3f',
title: 'Post 2'
}
],
nextToken: null
}
*/
query
also accepts a filter
, nextToken
and limit
much like a scan, for the results after the query.
You can also use simpleQuery
like simpleScan
:
const postsByAuthor1 = await posts.simpleQuery('authorId-index', { authorId: '1' });
console.log(postsByAuthor1);
/*
[
{
content: 'Title 1',
authorId: '1',
id: '767311af-b122-420d-9b7f-a5692dbfbd45',
title: 'Post 1'
},
{
content: 'Title 2',
authorId: '1',
id: 'a46ec412-1e95-4c9c-a24e-1d4d15092d3f',
title: 'Post 2'
}
]
*/
simpleQuery
doesn't deal with pagination (so there may be more items) and it accepts a filter as a third parameter.
You also have a queryAll
method which does deal with pagination and keeps querying until all items have been retrieved.
const postsByAuthor1 = await posts.queryAll('authorId-index', { authorId: '1' });
console.log(postsByAuthor1);
/*
[
{
content: 'Title 1',
authorId: '1',
id: '767311af-b122-420d-9b7f-a5692dbfbd45',
title: 'Post 1'
},
{
content: 'Title 2',
authorId: '1',
id: 'a46ec412-1e95-4c9c-a24e-1d4d15092d3f',
title: 'Post 2'
}
]
*/
Deleting
You can delete an item using the deleteItem
method:
const deletedPost = await posts.deleteItem('a46ec412-1e95-4c9c-a24e-1d4d15092d3f');
console.log(deletedPost);
/*
{
authorId: '1',
content: 'Title 2',
id: 'a46ec412-1e95-4c9c-a24e-1d4d15092d3f',
title: 'Post 2'
}
*/
Hope this is useful!
Top comments (0)