Retrieving data from a DynamoDB using Python

Question

A newbie to DynamoDb and python in general here. I have a task to complete where I have to retrieve information from a DynamoDB using some information provided. I've set up the access keys and such and I've been provided a 'Hash Key' and a table name. I'm looking for a way to use the hash key in order to retrieve the information but I haven't been able to find something specific online.

#Table Name
table_name = 'Waypoints'

    #Dynamodb client
    dynamodb_client = boto3.client('dynamodb')
    
    #Hash key
    hash_key = {
        ''
    }
    #Retrieve items
    response = dynamodb_client.get_item(TableName = table_name, Key = hash_key)

Above is what I have writtenbut that doesn't work. Get item only returns one_item from what I can gather but I'm not sure what to pass on to make it work in the first place.

Any sort of help would be greatly appreaciated.

Answer 1

First of all, in get_item() request the key should not be just the key's value, but rather a map with the key's name and value. For example, if your hash-key attribute is called "p", the Key you should pass would be {'p': hash_key} .

Second, is the hash key the entire key in your table? If you also have a sort key, in a get_item() you must also specify that part of the key - and the result is one item. If you are looking for all the items with a particular hash key but different sort keys, then the function you need to use is query() , not get_item() .