Define resources

Add resources to the hit counter construct #

Now, let’s define the AWS Lambda function and the DynamoDB table in our HitCounter construct.

Now, go back to ~/HitCounter.java and add the following highlighted code:

package com.myorg;

import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;

import software.constructs.Construct;

import software.amazon.awscdk.services.dynamodb.Attribute;
import software.amazon.awscdk.services.dynamodb.AttributeType;
import software.amazon.awscdk.services.dynamodb.Table;
import software.amazon.awscdk.services.lambda.Code;
import software.amazon.awscdk.services.lambda.Function;
import software.amazon.awscdk.services.lambda.Runtime;

public class HitCounter extends Construct {
    private final Function handler;
    private final Table table;

    public HitCounter(final Construct scope, final String id, final HitCounterProps props) {
        super(scope, id);

        this.table = Table.Builder.create(this, "Hits")
            .partitionKey(Attribute.builder()
                .name("path")
                .type(AttributeType.STRING)
                .build())
            .build();

        final Map<String, String> environment = new HashMap<>();
        environment.put("DOWNSTREAM_FUNCTION_NAME", props.getDownstream().getFunctionName());
        environment.put("HITS_TABLE_NAME", this.table.getTableName());

        this.handler = Function.Builder.create(this, "HitCounterHandler")
            .runtime(Runtime.NODEJS_14_X)
            .handler("hitcounter.handler")
            .code(Code.fromAsset("lambda"))
            .environment(environment)
            .build();
    }

    /**
     * @return the counter definition
     */
    public Function getHandler() {
        return this.handler;
    }

    /**
     * @return the counter table
     */
    public Table getTable() {
        return this.table;
    }
}

What did we do here? #

This code is hopefully easy to understand:

We defined a DynamoDB table, table, with path as the partition key (every DynamoDB table must have a single partition key).
We defined a Lambda function which is bound to the lambda/hitcounter.handler code.
We wired the Lambda’s environment variables to the Function.name and Table.name of our resources via environment.put(...).

Late-bound values #

The FunctionName and TableName properties are values that only resolve when we deploy our stack (notice that we haven’t configured these physical names when we defined the table/function, only logical IDs). This means that if you print their values during synthesis, you will get a “TOKEN”, which is how the CDK represents these late-bound values. You should treat tokens as opaque strings. This means you can concatenate them together for example, but don’t be tempted to parse them in your code.