trigger 404 in spring-mvc controller?

Question

How do I get a spring 3.0 controller to trigger a 404?

I have a controller with @RequestMapping(value = "/**", method = RequestMethod.GET) and for some urls accessing the controller I want the container to come up with a 404.

Answer 1

Rewrite your method signature so that it accepts HttpServletResponse as a parameter, so that you can call setStatus(int) on it.

http://static.springsource.org/spring/docs/3.0.x/spring-framework-reference/html/mvc.html#mvc-ann-requestmapping-arguments

Answer 2

Since Spring 3.0 you also can throw an Exception declared with @ResponseStatus annotation:

@ResponseStatus(value = HttpStatus.NOT_FOUND)
public class ResourceNotFoundException extends RuntimeException {
    ...
}

@Controller
public class SomeController {
    @RequestMapping.....
    public void handleCall() {
        if (isFound()) {
            // whatever
        }
        else {
            throw new ResourceNotFoundException(); 
        }
    }
}