The aim of this project is to provide a convenient exception handler (resolver) for RESTful APIs that meets a best-practices for error responses without repeating yourself. It’s very easy to handle custom exceptions, customize error responses and even localize them. Also solves some pitfalls [1] in Spring MVC with a content negotiation when producing error responses.
Error messages generated by ErrorMessageRestExceptionHandler
follows the Problem Details for HTTP APIs specification.
For example, the following error message describes a validation exception.
In JSON format:
{
"type": "http://example.org/errors/validation-failed",
"title": "Validation Failed",
"status": 422,
"detail": "The content you've send contains 2 validation errors.",
"errors": [{
"field": "title",
"message": "must not be empty"
}, {
"field": "quantity",
"rejected": -5,
"message": "must be greater than zero"
}]
}
… or in XML:
<problem>
<type>http://example.org/errors/validation-failed</type>
<title>Validation Failed</title>
<status>422</status>
<detail>The content you've send contains 2 validation errors.</detail>
<errors>
<error>
<field>title</field>
<message>must not be empty</message>
</error>
<error>
<field>quantity</field>
<rejected>-5</rejected>
<message>must be greater than zero</message>
</error>
</errors>
</problem>
The core class of this library that resolves all exceptions is RestHandlerExceptionResolver.
It holds a registry of RestExceptionHandlers
.
When your controller throws an exception, the RestHandlerExceptionResolver
will:
-
Find an exception handler by the thrown exception type (or its supertype, supertype of the supertype… up to the
Exception
class if no more specific handler is found) and invoke it. -
Find the best matching media type to produce (using ContentNegotiationManager, utilises Accept header by default). When the requested media type is not supported, then fallback to the configured default media type.
-
Write the response.
Implementations of the RestExceptionHandler interface are responsible for converting the exception into Spring’s ResponseEntity instance that contains a body, headers and a HTTP status code.
The main implementation is ErrorMessageRestExceptionHandler that produces the ErrorMessage
body (see above for example).
All the attributes (besides status) are loaded from a properties file (see the section Localizable error messages).
This class also logs the exception (see the Exception logging section).
@EnableWebMvc
@Configuration
public class RestContextConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {
@Override
public void configureHandlerExceptionResolvers(List<HandlerExceptionResolver> resolvers) {
resolvers.add( exceptionHandlerExceptionResolver() ); // resolves @ExceptionHandler
resolvers.add( restExceptionResolver() );
}
@Bean
public RestHandlerExceptionResolver restExceptionResolver() {
return RestHandlerExceptionResolver.builder()
.messageSource( httpErrorMessageSource() )
.defaultContentType(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON)
.addErrorMessageHandler(EmptyResultDataAccessException.class, HttpStatus.NOT_FOUND)
.addHandler(MyException.class, new MyExceptionHandler())
.build();
}
@Bean
public MessageSource httpErrorMessageSource() {
ReloadableResourceBundleMessageSource m = new ReloadableResourceBundleMessageSource();
m.setBasename("classpath:/org/example/messages");
m.setDefaultEncoding("UTF-8");
return m;
}
@Bean
public ExceptionHandlerExceptionResolver exceptionHandlerExceptionResolver() {
ExceptionHandlerExceptionResolver resolver = new ExceptionHandlerExceptionResolver();
resolver.setMessageConverters(HttpMessageConverterUtils.getDefaultHttpMessageConverters());
return resolver;
}
}
<bean id="compositeExceptionResolver"
class="org.springframework.web.servlet.handler.HandlerExceptionResolverComposite">
<property name="order" value="0" />
<property name="exceptionResolvers">
<list>
<ref bean="exceptionHandlerExceptionResolver" />
<ref bean="restExceptionResolver" />
</list>
</property>
</bean>
<bean id="restExceptionResolver"
class="cz.jirutka.spring.exhandler.RestHandlerExceptionResolverFactoryBean">
<property name="messageSource" ref="httpErrorMessageSource" />
<property name="defaultContentType" value="application/json" />
<property name="exceptionHandlers">
<map>
<entry key="org.springframework.dao.EmptyResultDataAccessException" value="404" />
<entry key="org.example.MyException">
<bean class="org.example.MyExceptionHandler" />
</entry>
</map>
</property>
</bean>
<bean id="exceptionHandlerExceptionResolver"
class="org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.method.annotation.ExceptionHandlerExceptionResolver" />
<bean id="httpErrorMessageSource"
class="org.springframework.context.support.ReloadableResourceBundleMessageSource"
p:basename="classpath:/org/example/errorMessages"
p:defaultEncoding="UTF-8" />
The ExceptionHandlerExceptionResolver is used to resolve exceptions through @ExceptionHandler methods.
It must be registered before the RestHandlerExceptionResolver.
If you don’t have any @ExceptionHandler
methods, then you can omit the exceptionHandlerExceptionResolver
bean declaration.
Builder and FactoryBean registers a set of the default handlers by default.
This can be disabled by setting withDefaultHandlers
to false.
Message values are read from a properties file through the provided MessageSource, so it can be simply customized and localized.
Library contains a default messages.properties file that is implicitly set as a parent (i.e. fallback) of the provided message source.
This can be disabled by setting withDefaultMessageSource
to false (on a builder or factory bean).
The key name is prefixed with a fully qualified class name of the Java exception, or default
for the default value; this is used when no value for a particular exception class exists (even in the parent message source).
Value is a message template that may contain SpEL expressions delimited by #{
and }
.
Inside an expression, you can access the exception being handled and the current request (instance of HttpServletRequest) under the ex
, resp. req
variables.
For example:
org.springframework.web.HttpMediaTypeNotAcceptableException.type=http://httpstatus.es/406
org.springframework.web.HttpMediaTypeNotAcceptableException.title=Not Acceptable
org.springframework.web.HttpMediaTypeNotAcceptableException.detail=\
This resource provides #{ex.supportedMediaTypes}, but you've requested #{req.getHeader('Accept')}.
Exceptions handled with status code 5×× are logged on ERROR level (incl. stack trace), other exceptions are logged on INFO level without a stack trace, or on DEBUG level with a stack trace if enabled.
The logger name is cz.jirutka.spring.exhandler.handlers.RestExceptionHandler
and a Marker is set to the exception’s full qualified name.
When the DispatcherServlet is unable to determine a corresponding handler for an incoming HTTP request, it sends 404 directly without bothering to call an exception handler (see on StackOverflow).
This behaviour can be changed, since Spring 4.0.0, using throwExceptionIfNoHandlerFound
init parameter.
You should set this to true for a consistent error responses.
When using WebApplicationInitializer:
public class AppInitializer extends AbstractAnnotationConfigDispatcherServletInitializer {
protected void customizeRegistration(ServletRegistration.Dynamic reg) {
reg.setInitParameter("throwExceptionIfNoHandlerFound", "true");
}
...
}
…or classic web.xml:
<servlet>
<servlet-name>rest-dispatcher</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
<init-param>
<param-name>throwExceptionIfNoHandlerFound</param-name>
<param-value>true</param-value>
</init-param>
...
</servlet>
Released versions are available in jCenter and the Central Repository. Just add this artifact to your project:
<dependency>
<groupId>cz.jirutka.spring</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-rest-exception-handler</artifactId>
<version>1.2.0</version>
</dependency>
compile 'cz.jirutka.spring:spring-rest-exception-handler:1.2.0'
However if you want to use the last snapshot version, you have to add the JFrog OSS repository:
<repository>
<id>jfrog-oss-snapshot-local</id>
<name>JFrog OSS repository for snapshots</name>
<url>https://oss.jfrog.org/oss-snapshot-local</url>
<snapshots>
<enabled>true</enabled>
</snapshots>
</repository>
repositories {
maven {
url 'https://oss.jfrog.org/oss-snapshot-local'
}
}
-
Spring 3.2.0.RELEASE and newer is supported, but 4.× is highly recommended.
-
Jackson 1.× and 2.× are both supported and optional.
This project is licensed under Apache License 2.0.