DeleteItem in DynamoDB - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Delete an Item from a DynamoDB Table

📖 Scenario: You manage a small online bookstore. You keep track of books in a DynamoDB table called Books. Sometimes, a book is no longer available and you need to remove it from your database.

🎯 Goal: Learn how to delete a specific item from a DynamoDB table using the DeleteItem operation.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a DynamoDB table named Books with a primary key ISBN.

Set up a variable with the ISBN of the book to delete.

Write the DeleteItem command to remove the book with the specified ISBN.

Complete the deletion request with the correct table name and key.

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Deleting items from a database is common when data becomes outdated or incorrect, such as removing discontinued products or outdated records.

💼 Career

Database administrators and backend developers often need to delete records safely and efficiently using commands like DeleteItem in DynamoDB.

1

Create the Books table data structure

Create a dictionary called Books that represents your DynamoDB table with these exact items: {'ISBN': '978-0132350884', 'Title': 'Clean Code', 'Author': 'Robert C. Martin'} and {'ISBN': '978-0201616224', 'Title': 'The Pragmatic Programmer', 'Author': 'Andrew Hunt'}.

DynamoDB

# Create the Books table with two items
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use a list of dictionaries to represent the table items exactly as shown.

2

Set the ISBN to delete

Create a variable called isbn_to_delete and set it to the string '978-0132350884' which is the ISBN of the book you want to remove.

DynamoDB

Books = [
    {'ISBN': '978-0132350884', 'Title': 'Clean Code', 'Author': 'Robert C. Martin'},
    {'ISBN': '978-0201616224', 'Title': 'The Pragmatic Programmer', 'Author': 'Andrew Hunt'}
]
# Set the ISBN of the book to delete
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Assign the exact string to the variable isbn_to_delete.

3

Write the DeleteItem command

Create a dictionary called delete_request that represents the DynamoDB DeleteItem command. It should have a key TableName set to 'Books' and a key Key which is a dictionary with 'ISBN' set to the value of isbn_to_delete.

DynamoDB

Books = [
    {'ISBN': '978-0132350884', 'Title': 'Clean Code', 'Author': 'Robert C. Martin'},
    {'ISBN': '978-0201616224', 'Title': 'The Pragmatic Programmer', 'Author': 'Andrew Hunt'}
]
isbn_to_delete = '978-0132350884'
# Create the DeleteItem command dictionary
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use a dictionary with keys TableName and Key exactly as shown, with the key value wrapped in a type dictionary.

4

Complete the DeleteItem request

Add a key ReturnValues to the delete_request dictionary and set it to 'ALL_OLD' to return the deleted item details.

DynamoDB

Books = [
    {'ISBN': '978-0132350884', 'Title': 'Clean Code', 'Author': 'Robert C. Martin'},
    {'ISBN': '978-0201616224', 'Title': 'The Pragmatic Programmer', 'Author': 'Andrew Hunt'}
]
isbn_to_delete = '978-0132350884'
delete_request = {
    'TableName': 'Books',
    'Key': {'ISBN': {'S': isbn_to_delete}}
}
# Add ReturnValues to delete_request
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Set ReturnValues to 'ALL_OLD' inside the delete_request dictionary.