How to export a dynamodb table as a csv through aws-cli ( without using pipeline)

36
votes

I am new to aws-cli and I am trying to export my dynamodb table as a csv so that i can import it directly into postgresql. Is there a way to do that using aws-cli ?

So far i have came across this command aws dynamodb scan --table-name . But this does not provide an option of a csv export. Also, through this command I can get the output on my command prompt but I am not sure how to write it in a file.

4
amazon-web-servicescsvamazon-dynamodbaws-cli

4 Answers

70
votes

If all items have the same attributes, e.g. id and name both of which are strings, then run:

aws dynamodb scan \
    --table-name mytable \
    --query "Items[*].[id.S,name.S]" \
    --output text

That would give tab-separated output. You can redirect this to file using > output.txt, and you could then easily convert tabs into commas for csv.

Note that you may need to paginate per the scan documentation:

If the total number of scanned items exceeds the maximum dataset size limit of 1 MB, the scan stops and results are returned to the user as a LastEvaluatedKey value to continue the scan in a subsequent operation. The results also include the number of items exceeding the limit. A scan can result in no table data meeting the filter criteria.

Another option is the DynamoDBtoCSV project at github.

18
votes

For localhost dynamodb:

$aws dynamodb scan --table-name AOP --region us-east-1 --endpoint-url
http://localhost:8000 --output json > /home/ohelig/Desktop/a.json

For dynamodb:

$aws dynamodb scan --table-name AOP --region us-east-1 --output json > /home/ohelig/Desktop/a.json

Then Convert JSON to CSV or whatever.

I have modified above answer to make it clear.

13
votes

A better way to do a full export of all columns without listign out is at Dynamo db export to csv

basically 

aws dynamodb scan --table-name my-table --select ALL_ATTRIBUTES --page-size 500 --max-items 100000 --output json | jq -r '.Items' | jq -r '(.[0] | keys_unsorted) as $keys | $keys, map([.[ $keys[] ].S])[] | @csv' > export.my-table.csv
5
votes

You can use jq convert the json output given by aws cli to csv

aws dynamodb scan --table-name mytable --query "Items[*].[id.S,name.S]" --output json | jq -r '.[] | @csv' > dump.csv