Unable to use local DynamoDB restore from C#

[lukep-coxauto]

dynamodump has an option to use local DynamoDB by setting the region to local. The problem is that the AWS regions are defined explicitly in the C# client in an enum, and local is not contained within the enum.

DynamoDB local uses the region property to differentiate sets of tables, so if you create the tables under the region local, and you aren't able to specify the region local when using the DynamoDB client, you aren't able to access any tables.

> aws dynamodb list-tables --endpoint-url http://localhost:2732 --region local
{                                                                                                                                                                                                         
    "TableNames": [
        "Table1",
        "Table2",
        "Table3", 
    ]
}
> aws dynamodb list-tables --endpoint-url http://localhost:2732 --region us-east-1
{
    "TableNames": []
}

If we were able to add an additional flag such as --useDynamoDBLocal in tandem with a region specified by --region, then we could specify the region as an existing AWS region so DynamoDB Local partitions the tables into a namespace that's accessible from typed language clients where the local region will not exist.

This line in the file is the issue. if you pass "local" it sets the region to "local" also which makes the table partitioning listed under "local" region.

dynamodump/dynamodump/dynamodump.py

Line 1252 in 77e888f

region=args.region,

[bchew]

@lukep-coxauto I did some tests and from what I can tell, running DynamoDB Local with -sharedDb lists all tables regardless of region specified (or not even specified) https://docs.aws.amazon.com/amazondynamodb/latest/developerguide/DynamoDBLocal.UsageNotes.html

However, I am unsure if that would resolve your issue when it comes to typed language clients as I have not done any testing on that.

As to your point on local region being used, I understand where you are coming from on that but I believe that would require fair bit of changes to how dynamodump cli is used and it does sound outside the scope of the original intention of what the tool was designed for (it was originally tested with dynalite and not DynamoDB Local for e.g.). Having said that, am happy for you to create a pull request of the changes if you like. 🙂