TransactGetItems

The TransactGetItems request object lets you to tell the AWS AppSync DynamoDB function to make a TransactGetItems request to DynamoDB to retrieve multiple items, potentially across multiple tables. For this request object, you must specify the following:

• The table name of each request item where to retrieve the item from

• The key of each request item to retrieve from each table

The DynamoDB TransactGetItems limits apply and no condition expression can be provided.

The TransactGetItems request object has the following structure:

type DynamoDBTransactGetItemsRequest = {
  operation: 'TransactGetItems';
  transactItems: { table: string; key: { [key: string]: any }; projection?: { expression: string; expressionNames?: { [key: string]: string }; }[];
  };
};

The fields are defined as follows:

TransactGetItems fields

TransactGetItems fields list

operation

The DynamoDB operation to perform. To perform the TransactGetItems DynamoDB operation, this must be set to TransactGetItems. This value is required.

transactItems

The request items to include. The value is an array of request items. At least one request item must be provided. This transactItems value is required.

table

The DynamoDB table to retrieve the item from. The value is a string of the table name. This table value is required.

key

The DynamoDB key representing the primary key of the item to retrieve. DynamoDB items may have a single hash key, or a hash key and sort key, depending on the table structure. For more information about how to specify a “typed value”, see Type system (request mapping).

projection

A projection that's used to specify the attributes to return from the DynamoDB operation. For more information about projections, see Projections. This field is optional.

Things to remember:

• If a transaction succeeds, the order of retrieved items in the items block will be the same as the order of request items.

• Transactions are performed in an all-or-nothing way. If any request item causes an error, the whole transaction will not be performed and error details will be returned.

• A request item being unable to be retrieved is not an error. Instead, a null element appears in the items block in the corresponding position.

• If the error of a transaction is TransactionCanceledException, the cancellationReasons block will be populated. The order of cancellation reasons in cancellationReasons block will be the same as the order of request items.

• TransactGetItems is limited to 100 request items.

For the following example function request handler:

import { util } from '@aws-appsync/utils';

export function request(ctx) {
  const { authorId, postId } = ctx.args;
  return {
    operation: 'TransactGetItems',
    transactItems: [
      {
        table: 'posts',
        key: util.dynamodb.toMapValues({ postId }),
      },
      {
        table: 'authors',
        key: util.dynamodb.toMapValues({ authorId }),
      },
    ],
  };
}

If the transaction succeeds and only the first requested item is retrieved, the invocation result available in ctx.result is as follows:

{
    "items": [
       {
           // Attributes of the first requested item
           "post_id": "p1",
           "post_title": "title",
           "post_description": "description"
       },
       // Could not retrieve the second requested item
       null,
    ],
    "cancellationReasons": null
}

If the transaction fails due to TransactionCanceledException caused by the first request item, the invocation result available in ctx.result is as follows:

{
    "items": null,
    "cancellationReasons": [
       {
           "type":"Sample error type",
           "message":"Sample error message"
       },
       {
           "type":"None",
           "message":"None"
       }
    ]
}

The ctx.error contains details about the error. The keys items and cancellationReasons are guaranteed to be present in ctx.result.