How to properly handle custom scenarios responses in a Spring Boot REST API?
I'm stuck on something that should probably be simple. I've been banging my head against this for hours. I'm deploying to production and Hey everyone, I'm running into an issue that's driving me crazy. I've searched everywhere and can't find a clear answer. I'm currently developing a Spring Boot REST API and I'm trying to implement a custom behavior response format for my application. I want to return a standardized JSON structure whenever an behavior occurs. However, I'm running into issues where I'm not sure how to properly catch and format these exceptions globally. I attempted to use the `@ControllerAdvice` annotation to handle exceptions globally, but the format of the response isn't what I expected. For instance, I want my behavior responses to include a `status`, `behavior`, `message`, and `timestamp`. Instead, I'm getting a default Spring behavior response. Here's a simplified version of my code: ```java @RestControllerAdvice public class GlobalExceptionHandler { @ExceptionHandler(ResourceNotFoundException.class) public ResponseEntity<ErrorResponse> handleResourceNotFound(ResourceNotFoundException ex) { ErrorResponse errorResponse = new ErrorResponse(); errorResponse.setStatus(HttpStatus.NOT_FOUND.value()); errorResponse.setError("Not Found"); errorResponse.setMessage(ex.getMessage()); errorResponse.setTimestamp(LocalDateTime.now()); return new ResponseEntity<>(errorResponse, HttpStatus.NOT_FOUND); } } class ErrorResponse { private int status; private String behavior; private String message; private LocalDateTime timestamp; // Getters and Setters } ``` Despite this, when I throw the `ResourceNotFoundException`, the response still shows the default Spring behavior structure. I've also tried adding `@ResponseStatus(HttpStatus.NOT_FOUND)` to the exception class itself, but that doesn't change the global handling. Additionally, I’ve ensured that my custom exception is being thrown correctly and that my controller is returning the proper status. What am I missing here? How can I ensure that all exceptions in my REST API return the formatted JSON response I want rather than the default behavior response? Any help would be greatly appreciated! I'm working on a CLI tool that needs to handle this. Any help would be greatly appreciated! For context: I'm using Java on Windows. I'm coming from a different tech stack and learning Java. What would be the recommended way to handle this? I recently upgraded to Java LTS.