I have two error pages; 1 is for SpecificExceptionA and the other is for Throwable.
<error-page>
<exception-type>org.SpecificExceptionA</exception-type>
<location>/WEB-INF/views/error/timedout.jsp</location>
</error-page>
<error-page>
<exception-type>java.lang.Throwable</exception-type>
<location>/WEB-INF/views/error/error.jsp</location>
</error-page>
If I have both of these defined in my web.xml everything goes to /error/error.jsp.
If I have just the specific exception defined, it goes to the proper page; but other errors go to the tomcat default (except 404)
Is there a better way to specify specific exception handlers? I'm using spring 3.0.
This is not specific to Tomcat. This is specific to the Servlet API. How the error page is determined is specified in chapter 9.9.2 of Servlet API specification 2.5. Here's an extract of relevance:
SRV.9.9.2 Error Pages
If no error-page
declaration containing an exception-type
fits using the
class-hierarchy match, and the exception thrown is a ServletException
or
subclass thereof, the container extracts the wrapped exception, as defined by
the ServletException.getRootCause
method. A second pass is made over the error
page declarations, again attempting the match against the error page
declarations, but using the wrapped exception instead.
So, your SpecificExceptionA
was likely wrapped in a ServletException
and thus the java.lang.Throwable
is the closest match on 1st pass. When you remove this entry, a 2nd pass will be made with the wrapped exception and thus your SpecificExceptionA
get a match.
The right way to define a general HTTP 500 error page is to map it on error-code
instead of exception-type
:
<error-page>
<exception-type>org.SpecificExceptionA</exception-type>
<location>/WEB-INF/views/error/timedout.jsp</location>
</error-page>
<error-page>
<error-code>500</error-code>
<location>/WEB-INF/views/error/error.jsp</location>
</error-page>
If this is not an option for some unclear reason, one of the ways to workaround this is to create a Filter
which listens on an url-pattern
of /*
and does basically the following:
public void doFilter(ServletRequest request, ServletResponse response, FilterChain chain) throws ServletException, IOException {
try {
chain.doFilter(request, response);
} catch (ServletException e) {
Throwable rootCause = e.getRootCause();
if (rootCause instanceof SpecificExceptionA) {
throw (SpecificExceptionA) rootCause;
} else {
throw e;
}
}
}
It only has to extend from RuntimeException
to get it to work.
I wound up using Springs SimpleMappingExceptionResolver class
<bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.handler.SimpleMappingExceptionResolver">
<property name="exceptionMappings">
<props>
<prop key="org.*.*.ResponseTimeExceededException">
<!-- the name of the jsp to use for this exception -->
error/timedout
</prop>
</props>
</property>
<property name="defaultErrorView" value="error/error"/>
</bean>