Spring Webflux : Webclient : Get body on error

Question

I am using the webclient from spring webflux, like this :

WebClient.create()
            .post()
            .uri(url)
            .syncBody(body)
            .accept(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON)
            .headers(headers)
            .exchange()
            .flatMap(clientResponse -> clientResponse.bodyToMono(tClass));

It is working well. I now want to handle the error from the webservice I am calling (Ex 500 internal error). Normally i would add an doOnError on the "stream" and isu the Throwable to test the status code,

But my issue is that I want to get the body provided by the webservice because it is providing me a message that i would like to use.

I am looking to do the flatMap whatever happen and test myself the status code to deserialize or not the body.

Answer 1

Note that as of writing this, 5xx errors no longer result in an exception from the underlying Netty layer. See https://github.com/spring-projects/spring-framework/commit/b0ab84657b712aac59951420f4e9d696c3d84ba2

Answer 2

I prefer to use the methods provided by the ClientResponse to handle http errors and throw exceptions:

WebClient.create()
         .post()
         .uri( url )
         .body( bodyObject == null ? null : BodyInserters.fromValue( bodyObject ) )
         .accept( MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON )
         .headers( headers )
         .exchange()
         .flatMap( clientResponse -> {
             //Error handling
             if ( clientResponse.statusCode().isError() ) { // or clientResponse.statusCode().value() >= 400
                 return clientResponse.createException().flatMap( Mono::error );
             }
             return clientResponse.bodyToMono( clazz )
         } )
         //You can do your checks: doOnError (..), onErrorReturn (..) ...
         ...

In fact, it's the same logic used in the DefaultResponseSpec of DefaultWebClient to handle errors. The DefaultResponseSpec is an implementation of ResponseSpec that we would have if we made a retrieve() instead of exchange().

Answer 3

Don't we have onStatus()?

    public Mono<Void> cancel(SomeDTO requestDto) {
        return webClient.post().uri(SOME_URL)
                .body(fromObject(requestDto))
                .header("API_KEY", properties.getApiKey())
                .retrieve()
                .onStatus(HttpStatus::isError, response -> {
                    logTraceResponse(log, response);
                    return Mono.error(new IllegalStateException(
                            String.format("Failed! %s", requestDto.getCartId())
                    ));
                })
                .bodyToMono(Void.class)
                .timeout(timeout);
    }

And:

    public static void logTraceResponse(Logger log, ClientResponse response) {
        if (log.isTraceEnabled()) {
            log.trace("Response status: {}", response.statusCode());
            log.trace("Response headers: {}", response.headers().asHttpHeaders());
            response.bodyToMono(String.class)
                    .publishOn(Schedulers.elastic())
                    .subscribe(body -> log.trace("Response body: {}", body));
        }
    }

Answer 4

You could also do this

return webClient.getWebClient()
 .post()
 .uri("/api/Card")
 .body(BodyInserters.fromObject(cardObject))
 .exchange()
 .flatMap(clientResponse -> {
     if (clientResponse.statusCode().is5xxServerError()) {
        clientResponse.body((clientHttpResponse, context) -> {
           return clientHttpResponse.getBody();
        });
     return clientResponse.bodyToMono(String.class);
   }
   else
     return clientResponse.bodyToMono(String.class);
});

Read this article for more examples link, I found it to be helpful when I experienced a similar problem with error handling

Answer 5

I got the error body by doing like this:

webClient
...
.retrieve()    
.onStatus(HttpStatus::isError, response -> response.bodyToMono(String.class) // error body as String or other class
                                                   .flatMap(error -> Mono.error(new RuntimeException(error)))) // throw a functional exception
.bodyToMono(MyResponseType.class)
.block();

Answer 6

I do something like this:

Mono<ClientResponse> responseMono = requestSpec.exchange()
            .doOnNext(response -> {
                HttpStatus httpStatus = response.statusCode();
                if (httpStatus.is4xxClientError() || httpStatus.is5xxServerError()) {
                    throw new WebClientException(
                            "ClientResponse has erroneous status code: " + httpStatus.value() +
                                    " " + httpStatus.getReasonPhrase());
                }
            });

and then:

responseMono.subscribe(v -> { }, ex -> processError(ex));

Answer 7

I had just faced the similar situation and I found out webClient does not throw any exception even it is getting 4xx/5xx responses. In my case, I use webclient to first make a call to get the response and if it is returning 2xx response then I extract the data from the response and use it for making the second call. If the first call is getting non-2xx response then throw an exception. Because it is not throwing exception so when the first call failed and the second is still be carried on. So what I did is

return webClient.post().uri("URI")
    .header(HttpHeaders.CONTENT_TYPE, "XXXX")
    .header(HttpHeaders.ACCEPT, "XXXX")
    .header(HttpHeaders.AUTHORIZATION, "XXXX")
    .body(BodyInserters.fromObject(BODY))
    .exchange()
    .doOnSuccess(response -> {
        HttpStatus statusCode = response.statusCode();
        if (statusCode.is4xxClientError()) {
            throw new Exception(statusCode.toString());
        }
        if (statusCode.is5xxServerError()) {
            throw new Exception(statusCode.toString());
        }
    )
    .flatMap(response -> response.bodyToMono(ANY.class))
    .map(response -> response.getSomething())
    .flatMap(something -> callsSecondEndpoint(something));
}

Answer 8

We have finally understood what is happening : By default the Netty's httpclient (HttpClientRequest) is configured to fail on server error (response 5XX) and not on client error (4XX), this is why it was always emitting an exception.

What we have done is extend AbstractClientHttpRequest and ClientHttpConnector to configure the httpclient behave the way the want and when we are invoking the WebClient we use our custom ClientHttpConnector :

 WebClient.builder().clientConnector(new CommonsReactorClientHttpConnector()).build();

Answer 9

The retrieve() method in WebClient throws a WebClientResponseException whenever a response with status code 4xx or 5xx is received.

You can handle the exception by checking the response status code.

   Mono<Object> result = webClient.get().uri(URL).exchange().log().flatMap(entity -> {
        HttpStatus statusCode = entity.statusCode();
        if (statusCode.is4xxClientError() || statusCode.is5xxServerError())
        {
            return Mono.error(new Exception(statusCode.toString()));
        }
        return Mono.just(entity);
    }).flatMap(clientResponse -> clientResponse.bodyToMono(JSONObject.class))

Reference: https://www.callicoder.com/spring-5-reactive-webclient-webtestclient-examples/

Answer 10

I stumbled across this so figured I might as well post my code.

What I did was create a global handler that takes career of request and response errors coming out of the web client. This is in Kotlin but can be easily converted to Java, of course. This extends the default behavior so you can be sure to get all of the automatic configuration on top of your customer handling.

As you can see this doesn't really do anything custom, it just translates the web client errors into relevant responses. For response errors the code and response body are simply passed through to the client. For request errors currently it just handles connection troubles because that's all I care about (at the moment), but as you can see it can be easily extended.

@Configuration
class WebExceptionConfig(private val serverProperties: ServerProperties) {

    @Bean
    @Order(-2)
    fun errorWebExceptionHandler(
        errorAttributes: ErrorAttributes,
        resourceProperties: ResourceProperties,
        webProperties: WebProperties,
        viewResolvers: ObjectProvider<ViewResolver>,
        serverCodecConfigurer: ServerCodecConfigurer,
        applicationContext: ApplicationContext
    ): ErrorWebExceptionHandler? {
        val exceptionHandler = CustomErrorWebExceptionHandler(
            errorAttributes,
            (if (resourceProperties.hasBeenCustomized()) resourceProperties else webProperties.resources) as WebProperties.Resources,
            serverProperties.error,
            applicationContext
        )
        exceptionHandler.setViewResolvers(viewResolvers.orderedStream().collect(Collectors.toList()))
        exceptionHandler.setMessageWriters(serverCodecConfigurer.writers)
        exceptionHandler.setMessageReaders(serverCodecConfigurer.readers)
        return exceptionHandler
    }
}

class CustomErrorWebExceptionHandler(
    errorAttributes: ErrorAttributes,
    resources: WebProperties.Resources,
    errorProperties: ErrorProperties,
    applicationContext: ApplicationContext
)  : DefaultErrorWebExceptionHandler(errorAttributes, resources, errorProperties, applicationContext) {

    override fun handle(exchange: ServerWebExchange, throwable: Throwable): Mono<Void> =
        when (throwable) {
            is WebClientRequestException -> handleWebClientRequestException(exchange, throwable)
            is WebClientResponseException -> handleWebClientResponseException(exchange, throwable)
            else -> super.handle(exchange, throwable)
        }

    private fun handleWebClientResponseException(exchange: ServerWebExchange, throwable: WebClientResponseException): Mono<Void> {
        exchange.response.headers.add("Content-Type", "application/json")
        exchange.response.statusCode = throwable.statusCode

        val responseBodyBuffer = exchange
            .response
            .bufferFactory()
            .wrap(throwable.responseBodyAsByteArray)

        return exchange.response.writeWith(Mono.just(responseBodyBuffer))
    }

    private fun handleWebClientRequestException(exchange: ServerWebExchange, throwable: WebClientRequestException): Mono<Void> {
        if (throwable.rootCause is ConnectException) {

            exchange.response.headers.add("Content-Type", "application/json")
            exchange.response.statusCode = HttpStatus.BAD_GATEWAY

            val responseBodyBuffer = exchange
                .response
                .bufferFactory()
                .wrap(ObjectMapper().writeValueAsBytes(customErrorWebException(exchange, HttpStatus.BAD_GATEWAY, throwable.message)))

            return exchange.response.writeWith(Mono.just(responseBodyBuffer))

        } else {
            return super.handle(exchange, throwable)
        }
    }

    private fun customErrorWebException(exchange: ServerWebExchange, status: HttpStatus, message: Any?) =
        CustomErrorWebException(
            Instant.now().toString(),
            exchange.request.path.value(),
            status.value(),
            status.reasonPhrase,
            message,
            exchange.request.id
        )
}

data class CustomErrorWebException(
    val timestamp: String,
    val path: String,
    val status: Int,
    val error: String,
    val message: Any?,
    val requestId: String,
)