DynamoDB - Provided key containing '=' is rejected

Question

I am trying to delete an item in a dynamodb table. Even if I provide the correct id, the command rejects it:

aws dynamodb delete-item --table-name my-table --key 9cjmB5rjbqYWJ6USMf9OEV13Kyoxs6VAN8xl9Sutzdl7gTpaxX2UgA==

Here's the error I get:

Error parsing parameter '--key': Expected: ',', received: '=' for input:
9cjmB5rjbqYWJ6USMf9OEV13Kyoxs6VAN8xl9Sutzdl7gTpaxX2UgA==

Adding double quotes around the key does not work. Backslashes before '=' does not do it either.

Answer 1

To delete an item from a DynamoDB table using the AWS CLI, I believe you need to format the --key parameter as a JSON object.

Assuming the primary key of your table is called id and it's a string type, your command should look something like this:

aws dynamodb delete-item \
    --table-name my-table \
    --key '{"id": {"S": "9cjmB5rjbqYWJ6USMf9OEV13Kyoxs6VAN8xl9Sutzdl7gTpaxX2UgA=="}}'

Just replace id with the name of your table's primary key, and ensure the value and type ("S" for string) are correct for your specific item. Give that a go and if it doesn’t work, we can look further.