AWS DynamoDB with Python (Boto3)— Part 2 — Create Table & Insert Item

Accessing DynamoDB with Python

If you haven’t read the previous article in this series — AWS DynamoDB with Python (Boto3) — Part 1 — Intro to DynamoDB & local Installation

Boto3 — The AWS SDK for Python

Boto3 is the official SDK developed in Python which can help us to create, configure & manage AWS services

To see list of services Boto3 offers, please refer the official Boto3 documentation here

Boto3 to Access DynamoDB

First we need to add boto3 dependency in our project.

Create a file called requirements.txt under the root directory of our project. requirements.txt will contain list of dependencies we require to run our project.

For now, we need only boto3. So add the word boto3 as first line

Run the following command to install the dependencies

pip install -r requirements.txt -t dependencies/python/lib/python3.8/site-packages

To access DynamoDB using boto3,

import boto3
dynamodb = boto3.resource('dynamodb')

Remember, boto3 by default will try to access the DynamoDB associated with your AWS account.

If you want to access DynamoDB installed in your local machine for development purpose

import boto3
dynamodb = boto3.resource('dynamodb',
                          aws_access_key_id="dummy",
                          aws_secret_access_key="dummy",
                          region_name="us-west-2",
                          endpoint_url="http://localhost:8000")

Note: Its mandatory to specify at least dummy values for access, secret key, region_name to access DynamoDB in local (Don’t know why such restriction :P)

Create Table in DynamoDB

While creating DynamoDB table, we must configure Primary Keys. Here is the code to create DynamoDB table using boto3

import boto3


def create_table():
    dynamodb = boto3.resource('dynamodb',
                              aws_access_key_id="dummy",
                              aws_secret_access_key="dummy",
                              region_name="local",
                              endpoint_url="http://localhost:8000")

    table_creation_resp = dynamodb.create_table(
        TableName='Student',
        KeySchema=[
            {
                'AttributeName': 'dept',
                'KeyType': 'HASH'  # Partition Key
            },
            {
                'AttributeName': 'stud_id',
                'KeyType': 'RANGE'  # Sort Key
            }
        ],
        AttributeDefinitions=[
            {
                'AttributeName': 'dept',
                'AttributeType': 'S'  # string data type
            },
            {
                'AttributeName': 'stud_id',
                'AttributeType': 'S'  # string data type
            }
        ],
        ProvisionedThroughput={
            'ReadCapacityUnits': 10,
            'WriteCapacityUnits': 10
        }
    )

    print(table_creation_resp)

In above code, we created Student table with both partition & sort keys (dept, stud_id) as String type

Insert Item in DynamoDB

To insert an item, we need to use put_item() function

import boto3
class Student:
    dept: str
    stud_id: str
    stud_name: str
    stud_age: int
    subjects: list

    def __init__(self, dept, stud_id, stud_name, stud_age, subjects):
        self.dept = dept
        self.stud_id = stud_id
        self.stud_name = stud_name
        self.stud_age = stud_age
        self.subjects = subjects
def insert_student_data(stud: Student):
    dynamodb = boto3.resource('dynamodb',
                              aws_access_key_id="dummy",
                              aws_secret_access_key="dummy",
                              region_name="local",
                              endpoint_url="http://localhost:8000")

    table = dynamodb.Table('Student')

    insert_item_resp = table.put_item(
        Item={
            'dept': stud.dept,
            'stud_id': stud.stud_id,
            'stud_name': stud.stud_name,
            'stud_age': stud.stud_age,
            'subjects': stud.subjects
        }
    )

    print(insert_item_resp)

Remember, we can insert only one item a time using put_item function

Thats all about create table & insert item in DynamoDB !

Next article in this series — AWS DynamoDB with Python (Boto3) — Part 3— Query Items from DynamoDB

GitHub Repo URL — https://github.com/iamvickyav/dynamodb-with-python-boto3