# TryDaxHelper.java
<a name="DAX.client.run-application-java.TryDaxHelper"></a>

The `TryDaxHelper.java` file contains utility methods.

The `getDynamoDBClient` and `getDaxClient` methods provide Amazon DynamoDB and DynamoDB Accelerator (DAX) clients. For control plane operations (`CreateTable`, `DeleteTable`) and write operations, the program uses the DynamoDB client. If you specify a DAX cluster endpoint, the main program creates a DAX client for performing read operations (`GetItem`, `Query`, `Scan`).

The other `TryDaxHelper` methods (`createTable`, `writeData`, `deleteTable`) are for setting up and tearing down the DynamoDB table and its data.

You can modify the program in several ways:
+ Use different provisioned throughput settings for the table.
+ Modify the size of each item written (see the `stringSize` variable in the `writeData` method).
+ Modify the number of `GetItem`, `Query`, and `Scan` tests and their parameters.
+ Comment out the lines containing `helper.CreateTable` and `helper.DeleteTable` (if you don't want to create and delete the table each time you run the program).

**Note**  
 To run this program, you can set up Maven to use the client for the DAX SDK for Java and the AWS SDK for Java as dependencies. For more information, see [Using the client as an Apache Maven dependency](DAX.client.java-sdk-v1.md#DAXClient.Maven).   
Or, you can download and include both the DAX Java client and the AWS SDK for Java in your classpath. See [Java and DAX](DAX.client.run-application-java.md) for an example of setting your `CLASSPATH` variable.

```
import com.amazon.dax.client.dynamodbv2.AmazonDaxClientBuilder;
import com.amazonaws.services.dynamodbv2.AmazonDynamoDB;
import com.amazonaws.services.dynamodbv2.AmazonDynamoDBClientBuilder;
import com.amazonaws.services.dynamodbv2.document.DynamoDB;
import com.amazonaws.services.dynamodbv2.document.Item;
import com.amazonaws.services.dynamodbv2.document.Table;
import com.amazonaws.services.dynamodbv2.model.AttributeDefinition;
import com.amazonaws.services.dynamodbv2.model.KeySchemaElement;
import com.amazonaws.services.dynamodbv2.model.KeyType;
import com.amazonaws.services.dynamodbv2.model.ProvisionedThroughput;
import com.amazonaws.services.dynamodbv2.model.ScalarAttributeType;
import com.amazonaws.util.EC2MetadataUtils;

public class TryDaxHelper {

    private static final String region = EC2MetadataUtils.getEC2InstanceRegion();

    DynamoDB getDynamoDBClient() {
        System.out.println("Creating a DynamoDB client");
        AmazonDynamoDB client = AmazonDynamoDBClientBuilder.standard()
                .withRegion(region)
                .build();
        return new DynamoDB(client);
    }

    DynamoDB getDaxClient(String daxEndpoint) {
        System.out.println("Creating a DAX client with cluster endpoint " + daxEndpoint);
        AmazonDaxClientBuilder daxClientBuilder = AmazonDaxClientBuilder.standard();
        daxClientBuilder.withRegion(region).withEndpointConfiguration(daxEndpoint);
        AmazonDynamoDB client = daxClientBuilder.build();
        return new DynamoDB(client);
    }

    void createTable(String tableName, DynamoDB client) {
        Table table = client.getTable(tableName);
        try {
            System.out.println("Attempting to create table; please wait...");

            table = client.createTable(tableName,
                    Arrays.asList(
                            new KeySchemaElement("pk", KeyType.HASH), // Partition key
                            new KeySchemaElement("sk", KeyType.RANGE)), // Sort key
                    Arrays.asList(
                            new AttributeDefinition("pk", ScalarAttributeType.N),
                            new AttributeDefinition("sk", ScalarAttributeType.N)),
                    new ProvisionedThroughput(10L, 10L));
            table.waitForActive();
            System.out.println("Successfully created table.  Table status: " +
                    table.getDescription().getTableStatus());

        } catch (Exception e) {
            System.err.println("Unable to create table: ");
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }

    void writeData(String tableName, DynamoDB client, int pkmax, int skmax) {
        Table table = client.getTable(tableName);
        System.out.println("Writing data to the table...");

        int stringSize = 1000;
        StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(stringSize);
        for (int i = 0; i < stringSize; i++) {
            sb.append('X');
        }
        String someData = sb.toString();

        try {
            for (Integer ipk = 1; ipk <= pkmax; ipk++) {
                System.out.println(("Writing " + skmax + " items for partition key: " + ipk));
                for (Integer isk = 1; isk <= skmax; isk++) {
                    table.putItem(new Item()
                            .withPrimaryKey("pk", ipk, "sk", isk)
                            .withString("someData", someData));
                }
            }
        } catch (Exception e) {
            System.err.println("Unable to write item:");
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }

    void deleteTable(String tableName, DynamoDB client) {
        Table table = client.getTable(tableName);
        try {
            System.out.println("\nAttempting to delete table; please wait...");
            table.delete();
            table.waitForDelete();
            System.out.println("Successfully deleted table.");

        } catch (Exception e) {
            System.err.println("Unable to delete table: ");
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }

}
```