DeleteItemCommand

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Deletes a single item in a table by primary key. You can perform a conditional delete operation that deletes the item if it exists, or if it has an expected attribute value.

In addition to deleting an item, you can also return the item's attribute values in the same operation, using the ReturnValues parameter.

Unless you specify conditions, the DeleteItem is an idempotent operation; running it multiple times on the same item or attribute does not result in an error response.

Conditional deletes are useful for deleting items only if specific conditions are met. If those conditions are met, DynamoDB performs the delete. Otherwise, the item is not deleted.

Example Syntax

Use a bare-bones client and the command you need to make an API call.

import { DynamoDBClient, DeleteItemCommand } from "@aws-sdk/client-dynamodb"; // ES Modules import
// const { DynamoDBClient, DeleteItemCommand } = require("@aws-sdk/client-dynamodb"); // CommonJS import
const client = new DynamoDBClient(config);
const input = { // DeleteItemInput
  TableName: "STRING_VALUE", // required
  Key: { // Key // required
    "<keys>": { // AttributeValue Union: only one key present
      S: "STRING_VALUE",
      N: "STRING_VALUE",
      B: new Uint8Array(), // e.g. Buffer.from("") or new TextEncoder().encode("")
      SS: [ // StringSetAttributeValue
        "STRING_VALUE",
      ],
      NS: [ // NumberSetAttributeValue
        "STRING_VALUE",
      ],
      BS: [ // BinarySetAttributeValue
        new Uint8Array(), // e.g. Buffer.from("") or new TextEncoder().encode("")
      ],
      M: { // MapAttributeValue
        "<keys>": {//  Union: only one key present
          S: "STRING_VALUE",
          N: "STRING_VALUE",
          B: new Uint8Array(), // e.g. Buffer.from("") or new TextEncoder().encode("")
          SS: [
            "STRING_VALUE",
          ],
          NS: [
            "STRING_VALUE",
          ],
          BS: [
            new Uint8Array(), // e.g. Buffer.from("") or new TextEncoder().encode("")
          ],
          M: {
            "<keys>": "<AttributeValue>",
          },
          L: [ // ListAttributeValue
            "<AttributeValue>",
          ],
          NULL: true || false,
          BOOL: true || false,
        },
      },
      L: [
        "<AttributeValue>",
      ],
      NULL: true || false,
      BOOL: true || false,
    },
  },
  Expected: { // ExpectedAttributeMap
    "<keys>": { // ExpectedAttributeValue
      Value: "<AttributeValue>",
      Exists: true || false,
      ComparisonOperator: "EQ" || "NE" || "IN" || "LE" || "LT" || "GE" || "GT" || "BETWEEN" || "NOT_NULL" || "NULL" || "CONTAINS" || "NOT_CONTAINS" || "BEGINS_WITH",
      AttributeValueList: [ // AttributeValueList
        "<AttributeValue>",
      ],
    },
  },
  ConditionalOperator: "AND" || "OR",
  ReturnValues: "NONE" || "ALL_OLD" || "UPDATED_OLD" || "ALL_NEW" || "UPDATED_NEW",
  ReturnConsumedCapacity: "INDEXES" || "TOTAL" || "NONE",
  ReturnItemCollectionMetrics: "SIZE" || "NONE",
  ConditionExpression: "STRING_VALUE",
  ExpressionAttributeNames: { // ExpressionAttributeNameMap
    "<keys>": "STRING_VALUE",
  },
  ExpressionAttributeValues: { // ExpressionAttributeValueMap
    "<keys>": "<AttributeValue>",
  },
  ReturnValuesOnConditionCheckFailure: "ALL_OLD" || "NONE",
};
const command = new DeleteItemCommand(input);
const response = await client.send(command);
// { // DeleteItemOutput
//   Attributes: { // AttributeMap
//     "<keys>": { // AttributeValue Union: only one key present
//       S: "STRING_VALUE",
//       N: "STRING_VALUE",
//       B: new Uint8Array(),
//       SS: [ // StringSetAttributeValue
//         "STRING_VALUE",
//       ],
//       NS: [ // NumberSetAttributeValue
//         "STRING_VALUE",
//       ],
//       BS: [ // BinarySetAttributeValue
//         new Uint8Array(),
//       ],
//       M: { // MapAttributeValue
//         "<keys>": {//  Union: only one key present
//           S: "STRING_VALUE",
//           N: "STRING_VALUE",
//           B: new Uint8Array(),
//           SS: [
//             "STRING_VALUE",
//           ],
//           NS: [
//             "STRING_VALUE",
//           ],
//           BS: [
//             new Uint8Array(),
//           ],
//           M: {
//             "<keys>": "<AttributeValue>",
//           },
//           L: [ // ListAttributeValue
//             "<AttributeValue>",
//           ],
//           NULL: true || false,
//           BOOL: true || false,
//         },
//       },
//       L: [
//         "<AttributeValue>",
//       ],
//       NULL: true || false,
//       BOOL: true || false,
//     },
//   },
//   ConsumedCapacity: { // ConsumedCapacity
//     TableName: "STRING_VALUE",
//     CapacityUnits: Number("double"),
//     ReadCapacityUnits: Number("double"),
//     WriteCapacityUnits: Number("double"),
//     Table: { // Capacity
//       ReadCapacityUnits: Number("double"),
//       WriteCapacityUnits: Number("double"),
//       CapacityUnits: Number("double"),
//     },
//     LocalSecondaryIndexes: { // SecondaryIndexesCapacityMap
//       "<keys>": {
//         ReadCapacityUnits: Number("double"),
//         WriteCapacityUnits: Number("double"),
//         CapacityUnits: Number("double"),
//       },
//     },
//     GlobalSecondaryIndexes: {
//       "<keys>": {
//         ReadCapacityUnits: Number("double"),
//         WriteCapacityUnits: Number("double"),
//         CapacityUnits: Number("double"),
//       },
//     },
//   },
//   ItemCollectionMetrics: { // ItemCollectionMetrics
//     ItemCollectionKey: { // ItemCollectionKeyAttributeMap
//       "<keys>": "<AttributeValue>",
//     },
//     SizeEstimateRangeGB: [ // ItemCollectionSizeEstimateRange
//       Number("double"),
//     ],
//   },
// };

Example Usage

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DeleteItemCommand Input

See DeleteItemCommandInput for more details

Parameter
Type
Description
Key
Required
Record<string, AttributeValue> | undefined

A map of attribute names to AttributeValue objects, representing the primary key of the item to delete.

For the primary key, you must provide all of the key attributes. For example, with a simple primary key, you only need to provide a value for the partition key. For a composite primary key, you must provide values for both the partition key and the sort key.

TableName
Required
string | undefined

The name of the table from which to delete the item. You can also provide the Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of the table in this parameter.

ConditionExpression
string | undefined

A condition that must be satisfied in order for a conditional DeleteItem to succeed.

An expression can contain any of the following:

  • Functions: attribute_exists | attribute_not_exists | attribute_type | contains | begins_with | size

    These function names are case-sensitive.

  • Comparison operators: = | | | | = | = | BETWEEN | IN

  • Logical operators: AND | OR | NOT

For more information about condition expressions, see Condition Expressions  in the Amazon DynamoDB Developer Guide.

ConditionalOperator
ConditionalOperator | undefined

This is a legacy parameter. Use ConditionExpression instead. For more information, see ConditionalOperator  in the Amazon DynamoDB Developer Guide.

Expected
Record<string, ExpectedAttributeValue> | undefined

This is a legacy parameter. Use ConditionExpression instead. For more information, see Expected  in the Amazon DynamoDB Developer Guide.

ExpressionAttributeNames
Record<string, string> | undefined

One or more substitution tokens for attribute names in an expression. The following are some use cases for using ExpressionAttributeNames:

  • To access an attribute whose name conflicts with a DynamoDB reserved word.

  • To create a placeholder for repeating occurrences of an attribute name in an expression.

  • To prevent special characters in an attribute name from being misinterpreted in an expression.

Use the # character in an expression to dereference an attribute name. For example, consider the following attribute name:

  • Percentile

The name of this attribute conflicts with a reserved word, so it cannot be used directly in an expression. (For the complete list of reserved words, see Reserved Words  in the Amazon DynamoDB Developer Guide). To work around this, you could specify the following for ExpressionAttributeNames:

  • {"#P":"Percentile"}

You could then use this substitution in an expression, as in this example:

  • #P = :val

Tokens that begin with the : character are expression attribute values, which are placeholders for the actual value at runtime.

For more information on expression attribute names, see Specifying Item Attributes  in the Amazon DynamoDB Developer Guide.

ExpressionAttributeValues
Record<string, AttributeValue> | undefined

One or more values that can be substituted in an expression.

Use the : (colon) character in an expression to dereference an attribute value. For example, suppose that you wanted to check whether the value of the ProductStatus attribute was one of the following:

Available | Backordered | Discontinued

You would first need to specify ExpressionAttributeValues as follows:

{ ":avail":{"S":"Available"}, ":back":{"S":"Backordered"}, ":disc":{"S":"Discontinued"} }

You could then use these values in an expression, such as this:

ProductStatus IN (:avail, :back, :disc)

For more information on expression attribute values, see Condition Expressions  in the Amazon DynamoDB Developer Guide.

ReturnConsumedCapacity
ReturnConsumedCapacity | undefined

Determines the level of detail about either provisioned or on-demand throughput consumption that is returned in the response:

  • INDEXES - The response includes the aggregate ConsumedCapacity for the operation, together with ConsumedCapacity for each table and secondary index that was accessed.

    Note that some operations, such as GetItem and BatchGetItem, do not access any indexes at all. In these cases, specifying INDEXES will only return ConsumedCapacity information for table(s).

  • TOTAL - The response includes only the aggregate ConsumedCapacity for the operation.

  • NONE - No ConsumedCapacity details are included in the response.

ReturnItemCollectionMetrics
ReturnItemCollectionMetrics | undefined

Determines whether item collection metrics are returned. If set to SIZE, the response includes statistics about item collections, if any, that were modified during the operation are returned in the response. If set to NONE (the default), no statistics are returned.

ReturnValues
ReturnValue | undefined

Use ReturnValues if you want to get the item attributes as they appeared before they were deleted. For DeleteItem, the valid values are:

  • NONE - If ReturnValues is not specified, or if its value is NONE, then nothing is returned. (This setting is the default for ReturnValues.)

  • ALL_OLD - The content of the old item is returned.

There is no additional cost associated with requesting a return value aside from the small network and processing overhead of receiving a larger response. No read capacity units are consumed.

The ReturnValues parameter is used by several DynamoDB operations; however, DeleteItem does not recognize any values other than NONE or ALL_OLD.

ReturnValuesOnConditionCheckFailure
ReturnValuesOnConditionCheckFailure | undefined

An optional parameter that returns the item attributes for a DeleteItem operation that failed a condition check.

There is no additional cost associated with requesting a return value aside from the small network and processing overhead of receiving a larger response. No read capacity units are consumed.

DeleteItemCommand Output

See DeleteItemCommandOutput for details

Parameter
Type
Description
$metadata
Required
ResponseMetadata
Metadata pertaining to this request.
Attributes
Record<string, AttributeValue> | undefined

A map of attribute names to AttributeValue objects, representing the item as it appeared before the DeleteItem operation. This map appears in the response only if ReturnValues was specified as ALL_OLD in the request.

ConsumedCapacity
ConsumedCapacity | undefined

The capacity units consumed by the DeleteItem operation. The data returned includes the total provisioned throughput consumed, along with statistics for the table and any indexes involved in the operation. ConsumedCapacity is only returned if the ReturnConsumedCapacity parameter was specified. For more information, see Provisioned capacity mode  in the Amazon DynamoDB Developer Guide.

ItemCollectionMetrics
ItemCollectionMetrics | undefined

Information about item collections, if any, that were affected by the DeleteItem operation. ItemCollectionMetrics is only returned if the ReturnItemCollectionMetrics parameter was specified. If the table does not have any local secondary indexes, this information is not returned in the response.

Each ItemCollectionMetrics element consists of:

  • ItemCollectionKey - The partition key value of the item collection. This is the same as the partition key value of the item itself.

  • SizeEstimateRangeGB - An estimate of item collection size, in gigabytes. This value is a two-element array containing a lower bound and an upper bound for the estimate. The estimate includes the size of all the items in the table, plus the size of all attributes projected into all of the local secondary indexes on that table. Use this estimate to measure whether a local secondary index is approaching its size limit.

    The estimate is subject to change over time; therefore, do not rely on the precision or accuracy of the estimate.

Throws

Name
Fault
Details
ConditionalCheckFailedException
client

A condition specified in the operation failed to be evaluated.

InternalServerError
server

An error occurred on the server side.

InvalidEndpointException
client
ItemCollectionSizeLimitExceededException
client

An item collection is too large. This exception is only returned for tables that have one or more local secondary indexes.

ProvisionedThroughputExceededException
client

Your request rate is too high. The Amazon Web Services SDKs for DynamoDB automatically retry requests that receive this exception. Your request is eventually successful, unless your retry queue is too large to finish. Reduce the frequency of requests and use exponential backoff. For more information, go to Error Retries and Exponential Backoff  in the Amazon DynamoDB Developer Guide.

ReplicatedWriteConflictException
client

The request was rejected because one or more items in the request are being modified by a request in another Region.

RequestLimitExceeded
client

Throughput exceeds the current throughput quota for your account. Please contact Amazon Web ServicesSupport  to request a quota increase.

ResourceNotFoundException
client

The operation tried to access a nonexistent table or index. The resource might not be specified correctly, or its status might not be ACTIVE.

TransactionConflictException
client

Operation was rejected because there is an ongoing transaction for the item.

DynamoDBServiceException
Base exception class for all service exceptions from DynamoDB service.