Spring MVC: using @ResponseStatus(reason = '') on a @ResponseBody exception handler in tomcat

Question

Does anybody know why I cannot use @ResponseStatus(reason = \"My message\") on an exception handler in spring MVC while still returning a @ResponseBody. What se

Answer 1

For the record, since Spring 3.2, this got even worse because the AnnotationMethodHandlerExceptionResolver has been replaced by the ResponseStatusExceptionResolver and it does:

protected ModelAndView resolveResponseStatus(ResponseStatus responseStatus, HttpServletRequest request,
  HttpServletResponse response, Object handler, Exception ex) throws Exception {

  int statusCode = responseStatus.value().value();
  String reason = responseStatus.reason();
  if (this.messageSource != null) {
    reason = this.messageSource.getMessage(reason, null, reason, LocaleContextHolder.getLocale());
  }
  if (!StringUtils.hasLength(reason)) {
    response.sendError(statusCode);
  }
  else {
    response.sendError(statusCode, reason);
  }
  return new ModelAndView();
}

This is worth a bug report. Moreover, the @ResponseStatus is documented with setStatus and is ill-designed. It should have been called @ResponseError.

I have created two issues for this finally: SPR-11192 and SPR-11193.

Almost a year has passed and my two issues are still open. I do not consider Spring WebMVC as a first-class REST framework which it isn't imho, WebMVC is for humas and not machines :-(