SimpleDb.NET

A .NET library that lets you work with AWS SimpleDB using a familiar entity-like model and LINQ queries.

The goals of SimpleDb.NET are:

• Surface 100% of SimpleDB's capabilities through an easy, "just works" .NET API - no falling back to "low-level" REST for some operations.
• Provide robust LINQ querying and session-based change tracking.
• Good or better performance compared to rolling your own AWS REST calls from your app.
• No dependencies on third-party libraries (including the AWS SDK).
• Platform-independence (basically, runs anywhere Mono does :) )

Installation

Nuget

nuget install SimpleDb.NET

From this repo

Download Cucumber.SimpleDb.dll from the root directory. That always reflects the current state of the master.

Usage

SimpleDb.NET doesn't require any configuration. To begin using it, just call SimpleDbContext.Create:

using(var simpleDb = SimpleDbContext.Create("publicKey", "privateKey"))
{
  var items = from item in simpleDb.Domains["myDomain"].Items
              where item["Status"] == "Hot" && item["LastUpdated"] > DateTime.Now.AddDays(-1)
              orderby item => item["LastUpdated"] descending
              select item;
    
  foreach(var item in items)
  {
    Console.WriteLine(item["MyOtherAttribute"]);
  }
}

If you've used LINQ to SQL (or pretty much any LINQ-friendly ORM) this should look fairly familiar. We've left it up to you to decide where to store your AWS public and private keys.

Querying

The LINQ API will implicitly convert all the types supported by SimpleDB to the corresponding types in .NET - such as string, int, and DateTime. It also natively supports queries with SimpleDB's concept of multi-value attributes.

Although AWS SimpleDB is not a relational data store, SimpleDb.NET supports relation-y LINQ queries such as JOIN by batching multiple queries to AWS in parallel, and transforming the results on the local machine. Note: this may change in v3, because it allows the default behavior to potentially cause very high resource consumption, if the developer does not carefully consider the implications of a given LINQ query. Please weigh in if you have an opinion.

CRUD

All changes to items, as well as additions and deletions from a domain, are tracked and batch-sent over the wire once SubmitChanges() is called:

var newItem = myDomain.Items.Add("SomeItem");
newItem["SomeAttribute"] = "we really are schema-less!";
simpleDb.SubmitChanges();

Creating and deleting Domains are executed immediately.

You can find more details on the wiki.

Contributing

Check out the contribution guidelines on the wiki.

Acknowledgements

The LINQ provider stands on Matt Warren's shoulders. Every LINQ provider that exists today (and LINQ itself) is thanks to him and the brilliant guys and girls at Microsoft.

And of course, Amazon for creating and operating such a powerful cloud database service.