#RestControllerAdvice vs #ControllerAdvice - spring

Question

What are the major difference between #RestControllerAdvice and #ControllerAdvice ??
Is it we should always use #RestControllerAdvice for rest services and #ControllerAdvice MVC ?

Answer 1

#RestControllerAdvice is just a syntactic sugar for #ControllerAdvice + #ResponseBody, you can look here.
Is it we should always use #RestControllerAdvice for rest services and
#ControllerAdvice MVC?
Again, as mentioned above, #ControllerAdvice can be used even for REST web services as well, but you need to additionally use #ResponseBody.

Answer 2

In addition, we can just understand it as:
#RestControler = #Controller + #ResponseBody
#RestControllerAdvice = #ControllerAdvice + #ResponseBody.
Keeping in mind that #RestControllerAdvice is more convenient annotation for handling Exception with RestfulApi.
Example os usage:
#RestControllerAdvice
public class WebRestControllerAdvice {
#ExceptionHandler(CustomNotFoundException.class)
public ResponseMsg handleNotFoundException(CustomNotFoundException ex) {
ResponseMsg responseMsg = new ResponseMsg(ex.getMessage());
return responseMsg;
}
}
In that case any exception instanceOf CustomNotFoundException will be thrown in body of response.
Example extracted here:
https://grokonez.com/spring-framework/spring-mvc/use-restcontrolleradvice-new-features-spring-framework-4-3

Answer 3

Exception: A good REST API should handle the exception properly and send the proper response to the user. The user should not be rendered with any unhandled exception.
A REST API developer will have two requirements related to error handling.
Common place for Error handling
Similar Error Response body with a proper HTTP status code across APIs
#RestControllerAdvice is the combination of both #ControllerAdvice and #ResponseBody
The #ControllerAdvice annotation was first introduced in Spring 3.2.
We can use the #ControllerAdvice annotation for handling exceptions in the RESTful Services but we need to add #ResponseBody separately.
Note:
GlobalExceptionHandler was annotated with #ControllerAdvice, thus it is going to intercept exceptions from controllers accross the application.

Answer 4

The differences between #RestControllerAdvice and #ControllerAdvice is :
#RestControllerAdvice = #ControllerAdvice + #ResponseBody. - we can
use in REST web services.
#ControllerAdvice - We can use in both MVC and Rest web services, need to
provide the ResponseBody if we use this in Rest web services.
For Example :
Exception Class:
#ResponseStatus(value = HttpStatus.NOT_FOUND)
public class ResourceNotFoundException extends Exception{
private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;
public ResourceNotFoundException(String message){
super(message);
}
}
usage of the above exception in Rest Web Service.
#RestControllerAdvice
public class MyRestControllerAdviceHandler {
#ExceptionHandler(ResourceNotFoundException.class)
public ResponseMsg resourceNotFoundException(ResourceNotFoundException ex) {
ResponseMsg resMsg = new ResponseMsg(ex.getMessage());
return resMsg;
}
}
usage of the above exception in MVC.
#ControllerAdvice
public class GlobalExceptionHandler extends ResponseEntityExceptionHandler {
#ExceptionHandler(ResourceNotFoundException.class)
public ResponseEntity<?> resourceNotFoundException(ResourceNotFoundException ex) {
return new ResponseEntity<>(ex.getMessage(), HttpStatus.NOT_FOUND);
}
}

Answer 5

If you use #ControllerAdvice and return your error object from a method then it will look for a view with the name of your error object so instead of returning the expected response it will return 404 for not founding a view page with that name
#ControllerAdvice
public class CustomizedExceptionHandler {
#ExceptionHandler({ UserNotFoundException.class })
#ResponseStatus(code = HttpStatus.BAD_REQUEST)
public ExceptionResponce handleUserNotException(Exception ex, WebRequest request) throws Exception {
ExceptionResponce exceptionResponce = new ExceptionResponce(new Date(), ex.getMessage(),
request.getDescription(false));
return exceptionResponce;
}
}
As in the above code, I want to return 400 (BAD_REQUEST) but
instead of 400, it is returning 404(NOT_FOUND)
You can solve this issue by using any of the below ways
add #ResponseBody to your method or class.
Use #RestControllerAdvice.
Or you can wrap your error object in ResponseEntity.
After using either of the above ways it returns the correct response