Using shorthand syntax in the AWS CLI

The AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI) can accept many of its option parameters in JSON format. However, it can be tedious to enter large JSON lists or structures on the command line. To make this easier, the AWS CLI also supports a shorthand syntax that enables a simpler representation of your option parameters than using the full JSON format.

Structure parameters

The shorthand syntax in the AWS CLI makes it easier for users to input parameters that are flat (non-nested structures). The format is a comma-separated list of key-value pairs. Be sure to use the quoting and escaping rules appropriate for your terminal as shorthand syntax are strings.

Linux or macOS

--option key1=value1,key2=value2,key3=value3

PowerShell

--option "key1=value1,key2=value2,key3=value3"

These are both equivalent to the following example, formatted in JSON.

--option '{"key1":"value1","key2":"value2","key3":"value3"}'

There must be no white space between each comma-separated key-value pair. Here is an example of the Amazon DynamoDB update-table command with the --provisioned-throughput option specified in shorthand.

$ aws dynamodb update-table \
    --provisioned-throughput ReadCapacityUnits=15,WriteCapacityUnits=10 \
    --table-name MyDDBTable

This is equivalent to the following example formatted in JSON.

$ aws dynamodb update-table \
    --provisioned-throughput '{"ReadCapacityUnits":15,"WriteCapacityUnits":10}' \
    --table-name MyDDBTable

Using shorthand syntax with the AWS Command Line Interface

You can specify Input parameters in a list form in two ways: JSON or shorthand. The AWS CLI shorthand syntax is designed to make it easier to pass in lists with number, string, or non-nested structures.

The basic format is shown here, where values in the list are separated by a single space.

--option value1 value2 value3

This is equivalent to the following example, formatted in JSON.

--option '[value1,value2,value3]'

As previously mentioned, you can specify a list of numbers, a list of strings, or a list of non-nested structures in shorthand. The following is an example of the stop-instances command for Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), where the input parameter (list of strings) for the --instance-ids option is specified in shorthand.

$ aws ec2 stop-instances \
    --instance-ids i-1486157a i-1286157c i-ec3a7e87

This is equivalent to the following example formatted in JSON.

$ aws ec2 stop-instances \
    --instance-ids '["i-1486157a","i-1286157c","i-ec3a7e87"]'

The following example shows the Amazon EC2 create-tags command, which takes a list of non-nested structures for the --tags option. The --resources option specifies the ID of the instance to tag.

$ aws ec2 create-tags \
    --resources i-1286157c \
    --tags Key=My1stTag,Value=Value1 Key=My2ndTag,Value=Value2 Key=My3rdTag,Value=Value3

This is equivalent to the following example, formatted in JSON. The JSON parameter is written over multiple lines for readability.

$ aws ec2 create-tags \
    --resources i-1286157c \
    --tags '[
        {"Key": "My1stTag", "Value": "Value1"},
        {"Key": "My2ndTag", "Value": "Value2"},
        {"Key": "My3rdTag", "Value": "Value3"}
    ]'