Amazon SimpleDB - Query

Declaration

<AMAWSSIMPLEDB PROVIDER="text (options)" SESSION="text" ACCESSKEY="text" SECRETKEY="text (encrypted)" USERAGENT="text" MAXERRORRETRY="number" SERVICEURL="text" PROXYHOST="text" PROXYPORT="number" PROXYUSER="text" PROXYPWD="text (encrypted)" SIGNMETHOD="text" SIGNVERSION="number" QUERY="text" RESULTDATASET="text" NEXTTOKEN="text" RESULTVARIABLE="text" CONSISTENTREAD="YES/NO" />

Related Topics   

Description

Returns a set of attributes for item names that match the Select expression. Select is similar to the standard SQL Query SELECT statement. Results are populated into a dataset.  

IMPORTANT: Automate's SimpleDB activities use Amazon's SimpleDB engine to perform their work, therefore, launching and operating Amazon SimplDB through Automate requires a valid Access Key ID and Secret Access Key.

Practical Usage

Used to query items within SimpleDB.

Parameters

Connection

Property Type Required Default Markup Description
Connection --- --- --- --- Indicates where Automate Web Service WS user credentials and preferences should originate from. This is a design mode parameter used only during task construction and configuration, thus, comprises no markup. The available options are:
  • Host (default) - Specifies that user credentials and/or advanced preferences are configured individually for this activity. This option is normally chosen if only a single activity is required to complete an operation.
  • Session - Specifies that user credentials and/or advanced preferences are obtained from a pre-configured session created in an earlier step with the use of the SimpelDB - Create session activity. This option is normally chosen if a combination of related activities are required to complete an operation. Linking several activities to a single session eliminates redundancy. Additionally, a single task supports construction and simultaneous execution of multiple sessions, improving efficiency.
Session Text Yes, if the Connection parameter is set to Session SQSSession1 SESSION="SimpleDBSession1" The name of an existing session to attach this activity to. This parameter is active only if the Connection parameter is set to Session. The default session name is SimpleDBSession1.
Access key Text Yes, if the Connection parameter is set to Host (Empty) ACCESSKEY="022QF06E7MXBSH9DHM02" A 20-character alphanumeric string that uniquely identifies the owner of the AWS service account, similar to a username. This key along with a corresponding secret access key forms a secure information set that AWS uses to confirm a valid user's identity. This parameter is active only if the Connection parameter is set to Host.
Secret access key Text Yes, if the Connection parameter is set to Host (Empty) SECRETKEY="kWcrlUX5JEDGM/LtmEENI/aVmYvHNif5zB+d9+ct" A 40-character string that serves the role as password to access the AWS service account. This along with an associated access key forms a secure information set that SQS uses to confirm a valid user's identity. This parameter is active only if the Connection parameter is set to Host.
User agent Text No Automate USERAGENT="Automate" The name of the client or application initiating requests to AWS, which in this case, is Automate. The default value is Automate. 
Maximum number of retries on error Number No (Empty) MAXERRORRETRY="4" The total amount of times this activity should retry its request to the server before returning an error. Network components can generate errors anytime in the life of a request, thus, implementing retries can increase reliability. 
Service URL Text No (Empty) SERVICEURL="https://sdb.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com" The URL that provides the service endpoint. To make the service call to a different region, you can pass the region-specific endpoint URL. For example, entering  https://sdb.us-west-1.amazonaws.com points to US West (Northern California) region. Refer to SimpleDB Endpoints and Regions for a complete list of SQS regions, along with their associated endpoints and valid protocols..
Proxy host Text No (Empty) PROXYHOST="proxy.host.com" The host name (for example, server.domain.com) or IP address (for example, 192.168.0.100) of the proxy server to use when connecting to AWS.  
Proxy port Number No (Empty) PROXYPORT="1028" The port that should be used to connect to the proxy server.
Proxy username Text No (Empty) PROXYUSER="username" The username that should be used to authenticate connection with the proxy server (if required).
Proxy password Text No (Empty) PROXYPWD="encrypted" The password that should be used to authenticate connection with the proxy server (if required).
Signature method Text No (Empty) SIGNMETHOD="HmacSHA256" The signature method to use for signing the request. This provides a valid hashing algorithm for signature calculation. Acceptable AWS signature methods are HmacSHA1 and HmacSHA256.
Signature version Number No (Empty) SIGNVERSION="2" The signature version for signing the request. Valid AWS signature versions are 2 and 4. The difference with version 4 is that it allows you to sign your message using a key that is derived from your secret access key rather than using the secret access key itself.

Data

Property Type Required Default Markup Description
Query Text Yes (Empty) QUERY="select * from myDomain" The expression used to query the domain.
Next Token (optional) Number No (Empty) NEXTTOKEN="2" String that tells Amazon SimpleDB where to start the next list of item names.
Populate variable with returned next token Text No (Empty) RESULTVARIABLE="var1" The name of the variable in which to populate with the next token.
Consistent read Yes/No No No CONSISTENTREAD="yes" If selected, ensures that the most recent data is returned. Disabled by default.
Create and populate dataset with query result Text Yes (Empty) RESULTDATASET="mydataset" The name of the dataset in which to create and populate with the query result. More details about the specific fields this dataset creates can be found below under Datasets.

Description

Error Causes

On Error

Additional Notes

SimpleDB Endpoints and Regions

This table contains a complete list of Amazon Simple Queue Service endpoints, along with their corresponding regions and supported protocols.

Endpoint Region Protocol
sdb.amazonaws.com US East (Northern Virginia) Region HTTP and HTTPS
sdb.us-west-2.amazonaws.com US West (Oregon) Region HTTP and HTTPS
sdb.us-west-1.amazonaws.com US West (Northern California) Region HTTP and HTTPS
sdb.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com EU (Ireland) Region HTTP and HTTPS
sdb.ap-southeast-1.amazonaws.com Asia Pacific (Singapore) Region HTTP and HTTPS
sdb.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com Asia Pacific (Sydney) Region HTTP and HTTPS
sdb.ap-northeast-1.amazonaws.com Asia Pacific (Tokyo) Region HTTP and HTTPS
sdb.sa-east-1.amazonaws.com South America (Sao Paulo) Region HTTP and HTTPS

Datasets

A dataset is a multiple column, multiple row container object. This activity creates and populates a dataset containing a specific set of fields in addition to the standard dataset fields. The table below describes these fields (assuming the dataset name assigned was theDataset).

Name Type Return Value
theDataset.ItemName Text Returns the item name.
theDataset.Attributes Text Returns the item's attributes.

Example

NOTE:
  • The sample AML code below can be copied and pasted directly into the Steps Panel of the Task Builder.
  • Parameters containing user credentials, files, file paths, and/or other information specific to the task must be customized before the sample code can run successfully.

Description

This sample task executes an Amazon SimpleDB query, and then creates and populates a dataset with the results.

Copy 
<AMAWSSIMPLEDB QUERY="select * from theData" RESULTDATASET="theDataset" />