I'm using Spring MVC for a simple JSON API, with @ResponseBody based approach like the following. (I already have a service layer producing JSON directly.)
@RequestMapping(value = "/matches/{matchId}", produces = "application/json")
@ResponseBody
public String match(@PathVariable String matchId) {
String json = matchService.getMatchJson(matchId);
if (json == null) {
// TODO: how to respond with e.g. 400 "bad request"?
}
return json;
}
Question is, in the given scenario, what is the simplest, cleanest way to respond with a HTTP 400 error?
I did come across approaches like:
return new ResponseEntity(HttpStatus.BAD_REQUEST);
...but I can't use it here since my method's return type is String, not ResponseEntity.