Top Best Practices for Exception Handling in Spring Boot Applications (With Examples)

Exception handling is an important aspect of any application, including Spring Boot applications. In Spring Boot, exceptions can occur due to various reasons such as invalid input, network issues, database errors, etc. Handling these exceptions properly can improve the overall user experience and prevent unexpected errors from crashing the application.

In this article, we will explore the different ways to handle exceptions in Spring Boot applications.

Using @ExceptionHandler Annotation:

The simplest way to handle exceptions in Spring Boot is by using the @ExceptionHandler annotation. This annotation is used to define a method that will handle exceptions of a specific type.

Here’s an example of using the @ExceptionHandler annotation:

@RestController
public class UserController {
  @GetMapping("/{id}")
  public User getUser(@PathVariable Long id) {
    // code to get user by id
  }
  @ExceptionHandler(UserNotFoundException.class)
  public ResponseEntity<String> handleUserNotFoundException(UserNotFoundException ex) {
    return ResponseEntity.status(HttpStatus.NOT_FOUND).body(ex.getMessage());
  }
}