Spring-mvc controller and exception handling

Question

Would like to ask you a best practice question where a spring-mvc controller is concerned. Please review the code below:

    @Autowired
    SomeService service;
         


        

Answer 1

A good practice with exception handling is to throw early and catch late. In your case, that would mean catching the error at the controller instead of the service. The advantage here is that you can code different controllers based on the client request (SOAP/REST/JSON...), to handle the exceptions differently. But if that logic is in the service, you have less flexibility over how to handle the return from the service, in your response to different clients.