Low-level interfaces

Every language-specific AWS SDK provides a low-level interface for Amazon DynamoDB, with methods that closely resemble low-level DynamoDB API requests.

In some cases, you will need to identify the data types of the attributes using Data type descriptors, such as S for string or N for number.

Note

A low-level interface is available in every language-specific AWS SDK.

The following Java program uses the low-level interface of the AWS SDK for Java.

import software.amazon.awssdk.regions.Region;
import software.amazon.awssdk.services.dynamodb.model.DynamoDbException;
import software.amazon.awssdk.services.dynamodb.DynamoDbClient;
import software.amazon.awssdk.services.dynamodb.model.AttributeValue;
import software.amazon.awssdk.services.dynamodb.model.GetItemRequest;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;
import java.util.Set;

/**
 * Before running this Java V2 code example, set up your development
 * environment, including your credentials.
 *
 * For more information, see the following documentation topic:
 *
 * https://docs.aws.amazon.com/sdk-for-java/latest/developer-guide/get-started.html
 *
 * To get an item from an Amazon DynamoDB table using the AWS SDK for Java V2,
 * its better practice to use the
 * Enhanced Client, see the EnhancedGetItem example.
 */
public class GetItem {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        final String usage = """

                Usage:
                    <tableName> <key> <keyVal>

                Where:
                    tableName - The Amazon DynamoDB table from which an item is retrieved (for example, Music3).\s
                    key - The key used in the Amazon DynamoDB table (for example, Artist).\s
                    keyval - The key value that represents the item to get (for example, Famous Band).
                """;

        if (args.length != 3) {
            System.out.println(usage);
            System.exit(1);
        }

        String tableName = args[0];
        String key = args[1];
        String keyVal = args[2];
        System.out.format("Retrieving item \"%s\" from \"%s\"\n", keyVal, tableName);
        Region region = Region.US_EAST_1;
        DynamoDbClient ddb = DynamoDbClient.builder()
                .region(region)
                .build();

        getDynamoDBItem(ddb, tableName, key, keyVal);
        ddb.close();
    }

    public static void getDynamoDBItem(DynamoDbClient ddb, String tableName, String key, String keyVal) {
        HashMap<String, AttributeValue> keyToGet = new HashMap<>();
        keyToGet.put(key, AttributeValue.builder()
                .s(keyVal)
                .build());

        GetItemRequest request = GetItemRequest.builder()
                .key(keyToGet)
                .tableName(tableName)
                .build();

        try {
            // If there is no matching item, GetItem does not return any data.
            Map<String, AttributeValue> returnedItem = ddb.getItem(request).item();
            if (returnedItem.isEmpty())
                System.out.format("No item found with the key %s!\n", key);
            else {
                Set<String> keys = returnedItem.keySet();
                System.out.println("Amazon DynamoDB table attributes: \n");
                for (String key1 : keys) {
                    System.out.format("%s: %s\n", key1, returnedItem.get(key1).toString());
                }
            }

        } catch (DynamoDbException e) {
            System.err.println(e.getMessage());
            System.exit(1);
        }
    }
}