Is it possible to update the attribute value which is part of the primary key in DynamoDB?

Question

I have table with "RefNumber", "status" and "Date". "RefNumber" is the partition Key and "Status" is the sort key So, both make a primary key.

{
    "RefNumber": "122345",
    "Status": "0",
    "DateTime": 15343354545
}

Now after fetching this record, I want to update "Status" with "1". I have multiple workers reading the DynamoDB records, just to avoid any 2 workers processing the same record I want to fetch and update the "Status" with "1" using ConditionExpression, if the update succeeds the worker will process else it will skip.

My question is, is it a good design to update the attribute value which is part of the primary key in dynamodb

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 01 '18 at 15:11

3

The short answer is No, it is not possible to update an attribute that forms the Key of an item in DynamoDB.

You can only delete the item and create another one.

If you consider this, logically, modifying a key of an element doesn’t make any sense: an element is uniquely identified by it’s key, so what does it even mean that you’re mutating the key? It would mean the old element is replaced entirely.

DynamoDB does not offer an atomic “replace” operation.

answered Nov 01 '18 at 15:11

Mike Dinescu

54,171
16
118
151

Thanks for the quick Reply. – Dhananjay Nov 01 '18 at 15:34
If the table also has a Global Secondary Index, the subsequent create item is failing, because of eventual consistency nature of DynamoDB. Any way to come around this? – Kesava May 19 '22 at 11:42

Is it possible to update the attribute value which is part of the primary key in DynamoDB?

1 Answers1