Complete scan of dynamoDb with boto3

Question

My table is around 220mb with 250k records within it. I'm trying to pull all of this data into python. I realize this needs to be a chunked batch process and looped through, but I'm not sure how I can set the batches to start where the previous left off.

Is there some way to filter my scan? From what I read that filtering occurs after loading and the loading stops at 1mb so I wouldn't actually be able to scan in new objects.

Any assistance would be appreciated.

import boto3
dynamodb = boto3.resource('dynamodb',
    aws_session_token = aws_session_token,
    aws_access_key_id = aws_access_key_id,
    aws_secret_access_key = aws_secret_access_key,
    region_name = region
    )

table = dynamodb.Table('widgetsTableName')

data = table.scan()

Answer 1

I think the Amazon DynamoDB documentation regarding table scanning answers your question.

In short, you'll need to check for LastEvaluatedKey in the response. Here is an example using your code:

import boto3
dynamodb = boto3.resource('dynamodb',
                          aws_session_token=aws_session_token,
                          aws_access_key_id=aws_access_key_id,
                          aws_secret_access_key=aws_secret_access_key,
                          region_name=region
)

table = dynamodb.Table('widgetsTableName')

response = table.scan()
data = response['Items']

while 'LastEvaluatedKey' in response:
    response = table.scan(ExclusiveStartKey=response['LastEvaluatedKey'])
    data.extend(response['Items'])