DynamoDB ExpressionAttributeValues Description Mismatch for Resource Methods

[CoshUS]

Describe the issue

Documentation for DynamoDB ExpressionAttributeValues description is incorrect for resource calls.

Example: https://boto3.amazonaws.com/v1/documentation/api/latest/reference/services/dynamodb.html#DynamoDB.Table.delete_item

Syntax shows

ExpressionAttributeValues={
        'string': 'string'|123|Binary(b'bytes')|True|None|set(['string'])|set([123])|set([Binary(b'bytes')])|[]|{}
    }

but the description of ExpressionAttributeValues says

ExpressionAttributeValues (dict) -- One or more values that can be substituted in an expression.

Use the : (colon) character in an expression to dereference an attribute value. For example, suppose that you wanted to check whether the value of the ProductStatus attribute was one of the following:

Available | Backordered | Discontinued You would first need to specify ExpressionAttributeValues as follows:

{ ":avail":{"S":"Available"}, ":back":{"S":"Backordered"}, ":disc":{"S":"Discontinued"} }

Links

https://boto3.amazonaws.com/v1/documentation/api/latest/reference/services/dynamodb.html#DynamoDB.Table.delete_item

[kdaily]

Hi @CoshUS,

Thanks for writing. I'm not sure what you're indicating the mismatch is. The text starting from "One or more values that can be substituted in an expression" comes directly from the API documentation:

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/amazondynamodb/latest/APIReference/API_DeleteItem.html#DDB-DeleteItem-request-ExpressionAttributeValues

Can you give an example of why the documentation is incorrect? Thanks!

[CoshUS]

For DynamoDB client, the documentation directly from API makes sense since the call would be

dynamodb_client.delete_item(ExpressionAttributeValues={":key" : {"S": {"val"} } }

but for DynamoDB table resource, the call should be

dynamodb_client.delete_item(ExpressionAttributeValues={":key" : "val" } }

without "S" indicating the type.

However, for both client and resource, the documentation is the same which says

You would first need to specify ExpressionAttributeValues as follows: { ":avail":{"S":"Available"}, ":back":{"S":"Backordered"}, ":disc":{"S":"Discontinued"} }\

This is confusing as table resource does not use the format of { ":avail":{"S":"Available"}, ":back":{"S":"Backordered"}, ":disc":{"S":"Discontinued"} }

[tim-finnigan]

Checking in - I think this issue may actually be a duplicate of https://github.com/boto/boto3/issues/3198. Can you please confirm or let us know if there are any distinctions you'd like to make between these issues?

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