Key condition expressions for the Query operation in DynamoDB - Amazon DynamoDB
Key condition expression examples

Key condition expressions for the Query operation in DynamoDB

You can use any attribute name in a key condition expression, provided that the first character is a-z or A-Z and the rest of the characters (starting from the second character, if present) are a-z, A-Z, or 0-9. In addition, the attribute name must not be a DynamoDB reserved word. (For a complete list of these, see Reserved words in DynamoDB.) If an attribute name does not meet these requirements, you must define an expression attribute name as a placeholder. For more information, see Expression attribute names (aliases) in DynamoDB.

For items with a given partition key value, DynamoDB stores these items close together, in sorted order by sort key value. In a Query operation, DynamoDB retrieves the items in sorted order, and then processes the items using KeyConditionExpression and any FilterExpression that might be present. Only then are the Query results sent back to the client.

A Query operation always returns a result set. If no matching items are found, the result set is empty.

Query results are always sorted by the sort key value. If the data type of the sort key is Number, the results are returned in numeric order. Otherwise, the results are returned in order of UTF-8 bytes. By default, the sort order is ascending. To reverse the order, set the ScanIndexForward parameter to false.

A single Query operation can retrieve a maximum of 1 MB of data. This limit applies before any FilterExpression or ProjectionExpression is applied to the results. If LastEvaluatedKey is present in the response and is non-null, you must paginate the result set (see Paginating table query results in DynamoDB).

Key condition expression examples

To specify the search criteria, you use a key condition expression—a string that determines the items to be read from the table or index.

You must specify the partition key name and value as an equality condition. You cannot use a non-key attribute in a key condition expression.

You can optionally provide a second condition for the sort key (if present). The sort key condition must use one of the following comparison operators:

  • a = b — true if the attribute a is equal to the value b

  • a < b — true if a is less than b

  • a <= b — true if a is less than or equal to b

  • a > b — true if a is greater than b

  • a >= b — true if a is greater than or equal to b

  • a BETWEEN b AND c — true if a is greater than or equal to b, and less than or equal to c.

The following function is also supported:

  • begins_with (a, substr)— true if the value of attribute a begins with a particular substring.

The following AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI) examples demonstrate the use of key condition expressions. These expressions use placeholders (such as :name and :sub) instead of actual values. For more information, see Expression attribute names (aliases) in DynamoDB and Using expression attribute values in DynamoDB.

Example

Query the Thread table for a particular ForumName (partition key). All of the items with that ForumName value are read by the query because the sort key (Subject) is not included in KeyConditionExpression.

aws dynamodb query \
    --table-name Thread \
    --key-condition-expression "ForumName = :name" \
    --expression-attribute-values  '{":name":{"S":"Amazon DynamoDB"}}'
Example

Query the Thread table for a particular ForumName (partition key), but this time return only the items with a given Subject (sort key).

aws dynamodb query \
    --table-name Thread \
    --key-condition-expression "ForumName = :name and Subject = :sub" \
    --expression-attribute-values  file://values.json

The arguments for --expression-attribute-values are stored in the values.json file.

{
    ":name":{"S":"Amazon DynamoDB"},
    ":sub":{"S":"DynamoDB Thread 1"}
}
Example

Query the Reply table for a particular Id (partition key), but return only those items whose ReplyDateTime (sort key) begins with certain characters.

aws dynamodb query \
    --table-name Reply \
    --key-condition-expression "Id = :id and begins_with(ReplyDateTime, :dt)" \
    --expression-attribute-values  file://values.json

The arguments for --expression-attribute-values are stored in the values.json file.

{
    ":id":{"S":"Amazon DynamoDB#DynamoDB Thread 1"},
    ":dt":{"S":"2015-09"}
}