Chapter 50. Handling Exceptions Abstract When possible, exceptions caught by a resource method should cause a useful error to be returned to the requesting consumer. JAX-RS resource methods can throw a WebApplicationException exception. You can also provide ExceptionMapper<E> implementations to map exceptions to appropriate responses. 50.1. Overview of JAX-RS Exception Classes Overview In JAX-RS 1.x, the only available exception class is WebApplicationException . Since JAX-WS 2.0, however, a number of additional JAX-RS exception classes have been defined. JAX-RS runtime level exceptions The following exceptions are meant to be thrown by the JAX-RS runtime only (that is, you must not throw these exceptions from your application level code): ProcessingException (JAX-RS 2.0 only) The javax.ws.rs.ProcessingException can be thrown during request processing or during response processing in the JAX-RS runtime. For example, this error could be thrown due to errors in the filter chain or interceptor chain processing. ResponseProcessingException (JAX-RS 2.0 only) The javax.ws.rs.client.ResponseProcessingException is a subclass of ProcessingException , which can be thrown when errors occur in the JAX-RS runtime on the client side . JAX-RS application level exceptions The following exceptions are intended to be thrown (and caught) in your application level code: WebApplicationException The javax.ws.rs.WebApplicationException is a generic application level JAX-RS exception, which can be thrown in application code on the server side. This exception type can encapsulate a HTTP status code, an error message, and (optionally) a response message. For details, see Section 50.2, "Using WebApplicationException exceptions to report" . ClientErrorException (JAX-RS 2.0 only) The javax.ws.rs.ClientErrorException exception class inherits from WebApplicationException and is used to encapsulate HTTP 4xx status codes. ServerErrorException (JAX-RS 2.0 only) The javax.ws.rs.ServerErrorException exception class inherits from WebApplicationException and is used to encapsulate HTTP 5xx status codes. RedirectionException (JAX-RS 2.0 only) The javax.ws.rs.RedirectionException exception class inherits from WebApplicationException and is used to encapsulate HTTP 3xx status codes. 50.2. Using WebApplicationException exceptions to report Overview The JAX-RS API introduced the WebApplicationException runtime exception to provide an easy way for resource methods to create exceptions that are appropriate for RESTful clients to consume. WebApplicationException exceptions can include a Response object that defines the entity body to return to the originator of the request. It also provides a mechanism for specifying the HTTP status code to be returned to the client if no entity body is provided. Creating a simple exception The easiest means of creating a WebApplicationException exception is to use either the no argument constructor or the constructor that wraps the original exception in a WebApplicationException exception. Both constructors create a WebApplicationException with an empty response. When an exception created by either of these constructors is thrown, the runtime returns a response with an empty entity body and a status code of 500 Server Error . Setting the status code returned to the client When you want to return an error code other than 500 , you can use one of the four WebApplicationException constructors that allow you to specify the status. Two of these constructors, shown in Example 50.1, "Creating a WebApplicationException with a status code" , take the return status as an integer. Example 50.1. Creating a WebApplicationException with a status code WebApplicationException int status WebApplicationException java.lang.Throwable cause int status The other two, shown in Example 50.2, "Creating a WebApplicationException with a status code" take the response status as an instance of Response.Status . Example 50.2. Creating a WebApplicationException with a status code WebApplicationException javax.ws.rs.core.Response.Status status WebApplicationException java.lang.Throwable cause javax.ws.rs.core.Response.Status status When an exception created by either of these constructors is thrown, the runtime returns a response with an empty entity body and the specified status code. Providing an entity body If you want a message to be sent along with the exception, you can use one of the WebApplicationException constructors that takes a Response object. The runtime uses the Response object to create the response sent to the client. The entity stored in the response is mapped to the entity body of the message and the status field of the response is mapped to the HTTP status of the message. Example 50.3, "Sending a message with an exception" shows code for returning a text message to a client containing the reason for the exception and sets the HTTP message status to 409 Conflict . Example 50.3. Sending a message with an exception Extending the generic exception It is possible to extend the WebApplicationException exception. This would allow you to create custom exceptions and eliminate some boiler plate code. Example 50.4, "Extending WebApplicationException" shows a new exception that creates a similar response to the code in Example 50.3, "Sending a message with an exception" . Example 50.4. Extending WebApplicationException 50.3. JAX-RS 2.0 Exception Types Overview JAX-RS 2.0 introduces a number of specific HTTP exception types that you can throw (and catch) in your application code (in addition to the existing WebApplicationException exception type). These exception types can be used to wrap standard HTTP status codes, either for HTTP client errors (HTTP 4xx status codes), or HTTP server errors (HTTP 5xx status codes). Exception hierarchy Figure 50.1, "JAX-RS 2.0 Application Exception Hierarchy" shows the hierarchy of application level exceptions supported in JAX-RS 2.0. Figure 50.1. JAX-RS 2.0 Application Exception Hierarchy WebApplicationException class The javax.ws.rs.WebApplicationException exception class (which has been available since JAX-RS 1.x) is at the base of the JAX-RS 2.0 exception hierarchy, and is described in detail in Section 50.2, "Using WebApplicationException exceptions to report" . ClientErrorException class The javax.ws.rs.ClientErrorException exception class is used to encapsulate HTTP client errors (HTTP 4xx status codes). In your application code, you can throw this exception or one of its subclasses. ServerErrorException class The javax.ws.rs.ServerErrorException exception class is used to encapsulate HTTP server errors (HTTP 5xx status codes). In your application code, you can throw this exception or one of its subclasses. RedirectionException class The javax.ws.rs.RedirectionException exception class is used to encapsulate HTTP request redirection (HTTP 3xx status codes). The constructors of this class take a URI argument, which specifies the redirect location. The redirect URI is accessible through the getLocation() method. Normally, HTTP redirection is transparent on the client side. Client exception subclasses You can raise the following HTTP client exceptions (HTTP 4xx status codes) in a JAX-RS 2.0 application: BadRequestException Encapsulates the 400 Bad Request HTTP error status. ForbiddenException Encapsulates the 403 Forbidden HTTP error status. NotAcceptableException Encapsulates the 406 Not Acceptable HTTP error status. NotAllowedException Encapsulates the 405 Method Not Allowed HTTP error status. NotAuthorizedException Encapsulates the 401 Unauthorized HTTP error status. This exception could be raised in either of the following cases: The client did not send the required credentials (in a HTTP Authorization header), or The client presented the credentials, but the credentials were not valid. NotFoundException Encapsulates the 404 Not Found HTTP error status. NotSupportedException Encapsulates the 415 Unsupported Media Type HTTP error status. Server exception subclasses You can raise the following HTTP server exceptions (HTTP 5xx status codes) in a JAX-RS 2.0 application: InternalServerErrorException Encapsulates the 500 Internal Server Error HTTP error status. ServiceUnavailableException Encapsulates the 503 Service Unavailable HTTP error status. 50.4. Mapping Exceptions to Responses Overview There are instances where throwing a WebApplicationException exception is impractical or impossible. For example, you may not want to catch all possible exceptions and then create a WebApplicationException for them. You may also want to use custom exceptions that make working with your application code easier. To handle these cases the JAX-RS API allows you to implement a custom exception provider that generates a Response object to send to a client. Custom exception providers are created by implementing the ExceptionMapper<E> interface. When registered with the Apache CXF runtime, the custom provider will be used whenever an exception of type E is thrown. How exception mappers are selected Exception mappers are used in two cases: When any exception or one of its subclasses, is thrown, the runtime will check for an appropriate exception mapper. An exception mapper is selected if it handles the specific exception thrown. If there is not an exception mapper for the specific exception that was thrown, the exception mapper for the nearest superclass of the exception is selected. By default, a WebApplicationException will be handled by the default mapper, WebApplicationExceptionMapper . Even if an additional custom mapper is registered, which could potentially handle a WebApplicationException exception (for example, a custom RuntimeException mapper), the custom mapper will not be used and the WebApplicationExceptionMapper will be used instead. This behaviour can be changed, however, by setting the default.wae.mapper.least.specific property to true on a Message object. When this option is enabled, the default WebApplicationExceptionMapper is relegated to the lowest priority, so that it becomes possible to handle a WebApplicationException exception with a custom exception mapper. For example, if this option is enabled, it would be possible to catch a WebApplicationException exception by registering a custom RuntimeException mapper. See the section called "Registering an exception mapper for WebApplicationException" . If an exception mapper is not found for an exception, the exception is wrapped in an ServletException exception and passed onto the container runtime. The container runtime will then determine how to handle the exception. Implementing an exception mapper Exception mappers are created by implementing the javax.ws.rs.ext.ExceptionMapper<E> interface. As shown in Example 50.5, "Exception mapper interface" , the interface has a single method, toResponse() , that takes the original exception as a parameter and returns a Response object. Example 50.5. Exception mapper interface The Response object created by the exception mapper is processed by the runtime just like any other Response object. The resulting response to the consumer will contain the status, headers, and entity body encapsulated in the Response object. Exception mapper implementations are considered providers by the runtime. Therefore they must be decorated with the @Provider annotation. If an exception occurs while the exception mapper is building the Response object, the runtime will send a response with a status of 500 Server Error to the consumer. Example 50.6, "Mapping an exception to a response" shows an exception mapper that intercepts Spring AccessDeniedException exceptions and generates a response with a 403 Forbidden status and an empty entity body. Example 50.6. Mapping an exception to a response The runtime will catch any AccessDeniedException exceptions and create a Response object with no entity body and a status of 403 . The runtime will then process the Response object as it would for a normal response. The result is that the consumer will receive an HTTP response with a status of 403 . Registering an exception mapper Before a JAX-RS application can use an exception mapper, the exception mapper must be registered with the runtime. Exception mappers are registered with the runtime using the jaxrs:providers element in the application's configuration file. The jaxrs:providers element is a child of the jaxrs:server element and contains a list of bean elements. Each bean element defines one exception mapper. Example 50.7, "Registering exception mappers with the runtime" shows a JAX-RS server configured to use a custom exception mapper, SecurityExceptionMapper . Example 50.7. Registering exception mappers with the runtime Registering an exception mapper for WebApplicationException Registering an exception mapper for a WebApplicationException exception is a special case, because this exception type is automatically handled by the default WebApplicationExceptionMapper . Normally, even when you register a custom mapper that you would expect to handle WebApplicationException , it will continue to be handled by the default WebApplicationExceptionMapper . To change this default behaviour, you need to set the default.wae.mapper.least.specific property to true . For example, the following XML code shows how to enable the default.wae.mapper.least.specific property on a JAX-RS endpoint: You can also set the default.wae.mapper.least.specific property in an interceptor, as shown in the following example:

Commands:
errors indexterm:[WebApplicationException]
import javax.ws.rs.core.Response; import javax.ws.rs.WebApplicationException; import org.apache.cxf.jaxrs.impl.ResponseBuilderImpl; ResponseBuilderImpl builder = new ResponseBuilderImpl(); builder.status(Response.Status.CONFLICT); builder.entity("The requested resource is conflicted."); Response response = builder.build(); throw WebApplicationException(response);
public class ConflicteddException extends WebApplicationException { public ConflictedException(String message) { ResponseBuilderImpl builder = new ResponseBuilderImpl(); builder.status(Response.Status.CONFLICT); builder.entity(message); super(builder.build()); } } throw ConflictedException("The requested resource is conflicted.");
public interface ExceptionMapper<E extends java.lang.Throwable> { public Response toResponse(E exception); }
import javax.ws.rs.core.Response; import javax.ws.rs.ext.ExceptionMapper; import org.springframework.security.AccessDeniedException; @Provider public class SecurityExceptionMapper implements ExceptionMapper<AccessDeniedException> { public Response toResponse(AccessDeniedException exception) { return Response.status(Response.Status.FORBIDDEN).build(); } }
<beans ...> <jaxrs:server id="customerService" address="/"> <jaxrs:providers> <bean id="securityException" class="com.bar.providers.SecurityExceptionMapper"/> </jaxrs:providers> </jaxrs:server> </beans>
<beans ...> <jaxrs:server id="customerService" address="/"> <jaxrs:providers> <bean id="securityException" class="com.bar.providers.SecurityExceptionMapper"/> </jaxrs:providers> <jaxrs:properties> <entry key="default.wae.mapper.least.specific" value="true"/> </jaxrs:properties> </jaxrs:server> </beans>
// Java public void handleMessage(Message message) { m.put("default.wae.mapper.least.specific", true);