How to handle numbers with DynamoDB data import from Amazon S3

Question

I am using the new DynamoDB data import from Amazon S3 functionality and it looks very powerful however my DynamoDB tables are all being generated with strings for every attribute when I am expecting numbers and booleans for some.  For example:

```
my_string,my_number,my_bool
"ABCDEFG",21,true
```

...ends up as...

```
{
	"my_string": "ABCDEFG",
	"my_number": "21",
	"my_bool": "true"
}
```

...when I was expecting...

```
{
	"my_string": "ABCDEFG",
	"my_number": 21,
	"my_bool": true
}
```

Is there a way of instructing the import job to encode my attributes correctly?

Many thanks for any advice

Accepted Answer

Hi, @mgvarley.

Unfortunately, when importing CSV, all attributes other than attributes that can be specified as options such as keys and indexes are imported as DynamoDB strings.  
This is the current specification.

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/amazondynamodb/latest/developerguide/S3DataImport.Format.html

So you need to convert the CSV to DynamoDB Json or Amazon Ion before doing the ingestion.

How to handle numbers with DynamoDB data import from Amazon S3

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