Unable to fetch an item in AWS DynamoDB

Question

Environment:

NodeJS used with "aws-sdk": "^2.1692.0" to test DynamoDB operations

Goal:

To fetch an item in an exsiting table called CUSTOMER_LIST which contains a list of items.

When I used putItem method to store data, it was a success with the given schema,

 var params = {
  TableName: "CUSTOMER_LIST",
  Item: {
    CUSTOMER_ID: { N: "001" },
    CUSTOMER_NAME: { S: "Richard Roe" },
  },
};

And when I want to fetch an item(getItem method), the given schema is,

   var params = {
      TableName: 'CUSTOMER_LIST',
      Key: {
        "CUSTOMER_ID": { N: "001" },
      },
      ProjectionExpression: 'CUSTOMER_NAME',
    };

but I end up having an error in the console given below

Error ValidationException: The provided key element does not match the schema

The same error is also thrown out for deletion of an item.

Here's a link from the AWS documentation from where the example has been taken.

Leeroy Hannigan · Accepted Answer · 2025-06-12 11:51:18Z

1

You have set CUSTOMER_NAME as the sort key, and in DynamoDB to do a GetItem you must provide the full primary key (partition and sort).

If you want to do a fetch with just the partition key, you must use Query operation:

var params = {
  TableName: 'CUSTOMER_LIST',
  KeyConditionExpression: 'CUSTOMER_ID = :id',
  ExpressionAttributeValues: {
    ':id': { N: '001' }
  },
  ProjectionExpression: 'CUSTOMER_NAME'
};

Then query instead of getItem:

dynamodb.query(params, function(err, data) {
  if (err) {
    console.error("Query failed:", JSON.stringify(err, null, 2));
  } else {
    console.log("Query succeeded:", JSON.stringify(data.Items, null, 2));
  }
});

answered Jun 12 at 11:51

Leeroy Hannigan

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4 Comments

Sunny Jun 12 at 12:09

Thanks a lot! It worked. Could you plz also provide the link to the documentation to be followed since I've been following the official aws documentation & it didn't work?

Sunny Jun 12 at 12:26

what about deletion of an item?

Sunny Jun 12 at 12:40

ok I got it. We need to use partition & sort key. Cheers.

Leeroy Hannigan Jun 12 at 13:14

You're welcome. I would also recommend you use SDKv3. Please feel free to mark the answer as 'accepted' if it helped.

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