I'm using Spring MVC for a simple JSON API, with a @ResponseBody
based approach like the following. (I already have a service layer producing JSON directly.)
@RequestMapping(value = "/matches/{matchId}", produces = "application/json")
@ResponseBody
public String match(@PathVariable String matchId) {
String json = matchService.getMatchJson(matchId);
if (json == null) {
// TODO: how to respond with e.g. 400 "bad request"?
}
return json;
}
In the given scenario, what is the simplest and cleanest way to give a response with an HTTP 400 error?
I did come across approaches like:
return new ResponseEntity(HttpStatus.BAD_REQUEST);
...but I can't use it here since my method's return type is String, not ResponseEntity.
Change your return type to ResponseEntity<>
, and then you can use the below for 400:
return new ResponseEntity<>(HttpStatus.BAD_REQUEST);
And for a correct request:
return new ResponseEntity<>(json,HttpStatus.OK);
After Spring 4.1 there are helper methods in ResponseEntity which could be used as:
return ResponseEntity.status(HttpStatus.BAD_REQUEST).body(null);
and
return ResponseEntity.ok(json);