intermediate~2h

Exception Handling & Validation

A REST API that returns a raw stack trace as a 500 response is unfinished. This module is how to make failure a first-class, designed part of your API contract.

Learning objectives

  • Beginner: A single @RestControllerAdvice handling one or two custom exception types plus a catch-all, for a small API.
  • Intermediate: A full exception hierarchy (e.g. a base ApiException with subclasses per error category) mapped consistently to the right HTTP status, with structured field-level validation errors.
  • Advanced: Error responses that include a machine-readable error code (for client-side logic to branch on) separate from the human-readable message, plus correlation/trace IDs for tying a client-reported error back to server logs.

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Exception Handling & Validation

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