Tables, items, and attributes in AWS - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Create and Populate a DynamoDB Table

📖 Scenario: You are setting up a simple database to store information about books in a library. You will create a DynamoDB table, define its key structure, and add some book items with attributes.

🎯 Goal: Build a DynamoDB table named LibraryBooks with a primary key and add three book items with specific attributes.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a DynamoDB table named LibraryBooks with BookID as the partition key (string type).

Define a variable books containing three book items with attributes: BookID, Title, and Author.

Use a loop to add each book item to the LibraryBooks table.

Add a final configuration to enable point-in-time recovery on the table.

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

DynamoDB tables are used to store structured data for applications like libraries, e-commerce, and user profiles.

💼 Career

Understanding how to create tables, add items, and configure recovery is essential for cloud engineers and developers working with AWS databases.

1

Create the DynamoDB table definition

Create a variable called table_definition that defines a DynamoDB table named LibraryBooks with a partition key named BookID of type string.

AWS

# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use a dictionary with keys TableName, KeySchema, AttributeDefinitions, and ProvisionedThroughput.

2

Define the book items data

Create a variable called books that is a list of dictionaries. Each dictionary represents a book with keys BookID, Title, and Author. Add these exact books: {'BookID': 'B1', 'Title': '1984', 'Author': 'George Orwell'}, {'BookID': 'B2', 'Title': 'To Kill a Mockingbird', 'Author': 'Harper Lee'}, and {'BookID': 'B3', 'Title': 'The Great Gatsby', 'Author': 'F. Scott Fitzgerald'}.

AWS

table_definition = {
    'TableName': 'LibraryBooks',
    'KeySchema': [
        {'AttributeName': 'BookID', 'KeyType': 'HASH'}
    ],
    'AttributeDefinitions': [
        {'AttributeName': 'BookID', 'AttributeType': 'S'}
    ],
    'ProvisionedThroughput': {
        'ReadCapacityUnits': 5,
        'WriteCapacityUnits': 5
    }
}

# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use a list with three dictionaries exactly matching the book details.

3

Add the book items to the table

Write a for loop using variables book to iterate over the books list and add each book to the LibraryBooks table using a method call table.put_item(Item=book).

AWS

table_definition = {
    'TableName': 'LibraryBooks',
    'KeySchema': [
        {'AttributeName': 'BookID', 'KeyType': 'HASH'}
    ],
    'AttributeDefinitions': [
        {'AttributeName': 'BookID', 'AttributeType': 'S'}
    ],
    'ProvisionedThroughput': {
        'ReadCapacityUnits': 5,
        'WriteCapacityUnits': 5
    }
}

books = [
    {'BookID': 'B1', 'Title': '1984', 'Author': 'George Orwell'},
    {'BookID': 'B2', 'Title': 'To Kill a Mockingbird', 'Author': 'Harper Lee'},
    {'BookID': 'B3', 'Title': 'The Great Gatsby', 'Author': 'F. Scott Fitzgerald'}
]

# Assume 'table' is the DynamoDB Table resource object

# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use a for loop with variable book and call table.put_item(Item=book) inside the loop.

4

Enable point-in-time recovery on the table

Add a configuration line to enable point-in-time recovery on the LibraryBooks table by calling table.update_point_in_time_recovery(PointInTimeRecoverySpecification={'PointInTimeRecoveryEnabled': True}).

AWS

table_definition = {
    'TableName': 'LibraryBooks',
    'KeySchema': [
        {'AttributeName': 'BookID', 'KeyType': 'HASH'}
    ],
    'AttributeDefinitions': [
        {'AttributeName': 'BookID', 'AttributeType': 'S'}
    ],
    'ProvisionedThroughput': {
        'ReadCapacityUnits': 5,
        'WriteCapacityUnits': 5
    }
}

books = [
    {'BookID': 'B1', 'Title': '1984', 'Author': 'George Orwell'},
    {'BookID': 'B2', 'Title': 'To Kill a Mockingbird', 'Author': 'Harper Lee'},
    {'BookID': 'B3', 'Title': 'The Great Gatsby', 'Author': 'F. Scott Fitzgerald'}
]

# Assume 'table' is the DynamoDB Table resource object
for book in books:
    table.put_item(Item=book)

# Your code here

Need a hint?

Call table.update_point_in_time_recovery with the correct dictionary to enable recovery.