User ID vs ID for primary key dynamoDB - amazon-web-services

I have a table in which has a "userId" column (set as a partition key) and a "createdAt" column (set as the sort key) so they form up a composite primary key.
I also need to find the exact row in case I don't have the User ID available, so I made another column "id" and made it as a global secondary index.
In my case, should I make the "id" column the primary key and remove the "userId" as the partition key or will this remove the feature of what "Partitioning" actually does by the DynamoDB?
Similarly, If I need to delete a row from the table, should I send "createdAt" field from the front end to be able to find out the exact row? Does this make sense? Sending the "id" of the row seems more good to me to be able to delete the row.

You probably don't want to put a timestamp in your user primary keys. Why? You'd need to know the exact time the user was created to fetch a user, which is probably not what you want.
Consider using a partition key of USER#<user_id> and a sort key of something predictable, like A or METADATA or USER#<user_id>. This allows you to fetch/delete a user by their ID.
If you have access patterns around fetching users in order of account creation, you can create a GSI with the sort key set to the createdAt attribute.

Related

DynamoDB Query with filter

I like to write a dynamoDb query in which I filter for a certain field, sounds simple.
All the examples I find always include the partition key value, which really confuses me, since it is unique value, but I want a list.
I got id as the partition key and no sort key or any other index. I tried to add partner as an index did not make any difference.
AttributeValue attribute = AttributeValue.builder()
.s(partner)
.build();
Map<String, AttributeValue> expressionValues = new HashMap<>();
expressionValues.put(":value", attribute);
Expression expression = Expression.builder()
.expression("partner = :value")
.expressionValues(expressionValues)
.build();
QueryConditional queryConditional = QueryConditional
.keyEqualTo(Key.builder()
.partitionValue("id????")
.build());
Iterator<Product> results = productTable.query(r -> r.queryConditional(queryConditional)
Would appreciate any help. Is there a misunderstandig on my side?
DynamoDB has two distinct, but similar, operations - Query and Scan:
Scan is for reading the entire table, including all partition keys.
Query is for reading a specific partition key - and all sort key in it (or a contiguous range of sort key - hence the nickname "range key" for that key).
If your data model does not have a range key, Query is not relevant for you - you should use Scan.
However this means that each time you call this query, the entire table will be read. Unless your table is tiny, this doesn't make economic sense, and you should reconsider your data model. For example, if you frequently look up results by the "partner" attribute, you can consider creating a GSI (global secondary index) with "partner" as its partition key, allowing you to quickly and cheapy fetch the list of items with a given "partner" value without scanning the entire table.

AWS DynamoDB : Why does "Keys Only" projection not include the Sort Key of the Table?

I was reading the official documentation for AWS' GSI. In the documentation they are indicating that the GameScores table has a Primary Key (UserID) and a Sort Key(GameTitle). They then create a GSI called GameTitleIndex on GameTitle and TopScore with KEYS ONLY projection - they mention that the new GSI will have GameTitle and TopScore AS WELL the primary key attributes projected.
But they ONLY indicate that UserID (And not GameTitle) is projected. They even show a diagram of the GSI where only UserID is shown and not GameTitle.
Isn't GameTitle a Key attribute (since its a COMPOSITE Primary Key?) and shouldn't BOTH UserID and GameTitle have been projected on the GSI?
GameTitle is right there as the partition key in the GSI. It's not going to appear twice. An attribute acting as a key is still present.

How to have a composite key in dynamoDB?

I have the following JSON in dynamo:
{
cdItem: "123456",
dtItem: "2021-03-01"
}
My hashkey is cdItem.
I would need my dtItem also be a key. So that if I send an item with the same cdItem, but different dtItem, it creates a new record and does not update the existing one.
How can I do this? Or, is it possible to do this?
There are multiple ways you can implement this and they depend on your access patterns.
If you only want to request an item for which you know both the cdItem as well as the dtItem values you could just overload the partition key by concatenating them, e.g. 123456#2021-03-01 that way you could keep your existing table.
A more flexible solution would be using a composite primary key, which is a combination of a partition and a sort key. This requires you to create a new table.
I'd set it up like this:
cdItem (Partition Key)
dtItem (Sort Key
123456
2021-02-27
123456
2021-02-28
123456
2021-03-01
654321
2021-03-01
You'll have to provide both of those attributes on each PutItem request.
You can also call GetItem with both values to retrieve a single item and you can select all dtItem values for a given cdItem value using the Query API as well as do some filtering on the value of dtItem.

Querying a Global Secondary Index of a DynamoDB table without using the partition key

I have a DynamoDB table with partition key as userID and no sort key.
The table also has a timestamp attribute in each item. I wanted to retrieve all the items having a timestamp in the specified range (regardless of userID i.e. ranging across all partitions).
After reading the docs and searching Stack Overflow (here), I found that I need to create a GSI for my table.
Hence, I created a GSI with the following keys:
Partition Key: userID
Sort Key: timestamp
I am querying the index with Java SDK using the following code:
String lastWeekDateString = getLastWeekDateString();
AmazonDynamoDB client = AmazonDynamoDBClientBuilder.standard().build();
DynamoDB dynamoDB = new DynamoDB(client);
Table table = dynamoDB.getTable("user table");
Index index = table.getIndex("userID-timestamp-index");
QuerySpec querySpec = new QuerySpec()
.withKeyConditionExpression("timestamp > :v_timestampLowerBound")
.withValueMap(new ValueMap()
.withString(":v_timestampLowerBound", lastWeekDateString));
ItemCollection<QueryOutcome> items = index.query(querySpec);
Iterator<Item> iter = items.iterator();
while (iter.hasNext()) {
Item item = iter.next();
// extract item attributes here
}
I am getting the following error on executing this code:
Query condition missed key schema element: userID
From what I know, I should be able to query the GSI using only the sort key without giving any condition on the partition key. Please help me understand what is wrong with my implementation. Thanks.
Edit: After reading the thread here, it turns out that we cannot query a GSI with only a range on the sort key. So, what is the alternative, if any, to query the entire table by a range query on an attribute? One suggestion I found in that thread was to use year as the partition key. This will require multiple queries if the desired range spans multiple years. Also, this does not distribute the data uniformly across all partitions, since only the partition corresponding to the current year will be used for insertions for one full year. Please suggest any alternatives.
When using dynamodb Query operation, you must specify at least the Partition key. This is why you get the error that userId is required. (In the AWS Query docs)
The condition must perform an equality test on a single partition key value.
The only way to get items without the Partition Key is by doing a Scan operation (but this wont be sorted by your sort key!)
If you want to get all the items sorted, you would have to create a GSI with a partition key that will be the same for all items you need (e.g. create a new attribute on all items, such as "type": "item"). You can then query the GSI and specify #type=:item
QuerySpec querySpec = new QuerySpec()
.withKeyConditionExpression(":type = #item AND timestamp > :v_timestampLowerBound")
.withKeyMap(new KeyMap()
.withString("#type", "type"))
.withValueMap(new ValueMap()
.withString(":v_timestampLowerBound", lastWeekDateString)
.withString(":item", "item"));
Always good solution for any customised querying requirements with DDB is to have right primary key scheme design for GSI.
In designing primary key of DDB, the main principal is that hash key should be designed for partitioning entire items, and sort key should be designed for sorting items within the partition.
Having said that, I recommend you to use year of timestamp as a hash key, and month-date as a sort key.
At most, the number of query you need to make is just 2 at max in this case.
you are right, you should avoid filtering or scanning as much as you can.
So for example, you can make the query like this If the year of start date and one of end date would be same, you need only one query:
.withKeyConditionExpression("#year = :year and #month-date > :start-month-date and #month-date < :end-month-date")
and else like this:
.withKeyConditionExpression("#year = :start-year and #month-date > :start-month-date")
and
.withKeyConditionExpression("#year = :end-year and #month-date < :end-month-date")
Finally, you should union the result set from both queries.
This consumes only 2 read capacity unit at most.
For better comparison of sort key, you might need to use UNIX timestamp.
Thanks

DynamoDB: Retrieving the n most recent items for each user

I have a DynamoDB table that store information about images. The hash key is a unique string that identifies each image. There are also two global secondary indicies: username and creation date. Username belongs to the user who created the image.
For each user, I want to be able to show them their 10 most recent images. How can I retrieve items from the table by first identifying images associated with a particular username, then choosing 10 of them by sorting through the creation dates?
In order to do this query, you need a GSI with a hash key of userId and a sort key of creationDate.
You can then do a query for a specific userId, set ScanIndexForward to false, and set Limit to n.