Spring HttpServerErrorException custom response body not being serialized

Question

I have a Controller like this example:

@RestController
@RequestMapping(value = "/risk", produces = {MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON_VALUE})
public class CalculationController {
    @RequestMapping(value = "/calculate", method = RequestMethod.POST)
    public CalculationResult calculate(InputFields i) {
       try {
           return calcService.calculate(i);
       } catch (CustomException custEx) {
            throw new HttpServerErrorException(HttpStatus.INTERNAL_SERVER_ERROR, 
                                                null,
                                                null, 
                                                getReportLogAsBytes(custEx), //for some reason not working when serialized in Json
                                                Charset.defaultCharset());
        }       
    }

    private byte[] getReportLogAsBytes(CustomException e) {
        try {
            return objectMapper.writeValueAsBytes(e.getReportLog()); //
        } catch (JsonProcessingException e1) {
            throw new RuntimeException("Unable to serialize Simulation report log to bytes ", e1);
        }
    }

    class CustomException extends Exception {

        private List<String> reportLog;

        public CustomException(List<String> reportLog) {
            super();
            this.setReportLog(reportLog);
        }

        public List<String> getReportLog() {
            return reportLog;
        }

        public void setReportLog(List<String> reportLog) {
            this.reportLog = reportLog;
        }       
    }
}

When posting the inputs to the controller and a CustomException occurs, I instantiate HttpServerErrorException using the constructor that accepts a byte array for responseBody . I basically give it a list of String error messages converted to byte array.

The problem is the response body still does not show the list of errors messages I passed to it. I tried looking for examples on using HttpServerErrorException with response body but cannot seem to find any... Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

You throw your HttpServerErrorException but don't handle it in the proper way.

Read this: https://spring.io/blog/2013/11/01/exception-handling-in-spring-mvc