web.xml error-page location redirect is not going through my filter definitions - spring-mvc

Question

In my web.xml I've done the following error-page mappings, but when they are invoked those invoked requests are not passing through the filter definitions specified in web.xml file.
<error-page>
<error-code>403</error-code>
<location>/error.vm?id=403</location>
</error-page>
<error-page>
<error-code>400</error-code>
<location>/error.vm?id=400</location>
</error-page>
<error-page>
<error-code>404</error-code>
<location>/error.vm?id=404</location>
</error-page>
<error-page>
<exception-type>javax.servlet.ServletException</exception-type>
<location>/servlet-exception.vm</location>
</error-page>
My application is using spring-mvc and I want to handle the handler not found condition from spring mvc. My application is an multi tenant application where some filters are responsible for setting some information related to the schema.
The requests are reaching in my error.vm controller but since they are passing through the filter I'm not able to determine the theme and SecurityContext etc.
How to solve this problem?
Thank you.

Answer 1

Instead of using web.xml's error pages you could use a servlet filter. The servlet filter could be used to catch all exceptions, or just a particular exception such as org.springframework.web.portlet.NoHandlerFoundException. (Is that what you mean by "handler not found" exception?)
The filter would look something like this:
package com.example;
import java.io.IOException;
import javax.servlet.*;
import javax.servlet.http.*;
import org.springframework.web.portlet.NoHandlerFoundException;
public class ErrorHandlingFilter implements Filter {
public void init(FilterConfig config) throws ServletException { }
public void destroy() { }
public void doFilter(ServletRequest req, ServletResponse resp, FilterChain chain) throws IOException, ServletException {
HttpServletRequest request = (HttpServletRequest) req;
HttpServletResponse response = (HttpServletResponse) resp;
try {
chain.doFilter(request, response);
} catch (NoHandlerFoundException e) {
// Or you could catch Exception, Error, Throwable...
// You probably want to add exception logging code here.
// Putting the exception into request scope so it can be used by the error handling page
request.setAttribute("exception", e);
// You probably want to add exception logging code here.
request.getRequestDispatcher("/WEB-INF/view/servlet-exception.vm").forward(request, response);
}
}
}
Then, set this up in web.xml with the help of Spring's DelegatingFilterProxy:
<filter>
<filter-name>errorHandlingFilter</filter-name>
<filter-class>org.springframework.web.filter.DelegatingFilterProxy</filter-class>
</filter>
<filter-mapping>
<filter-name>errorHandlingFilter</filter-name>
<url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
</filter-mapping>
And then finally, turn the filter into a spring bean inside your spring context xml:
<bean id="errorHandlingFilter" class="com.example.ErrorHandlingFilter" />
You might have to experiment with the order of the filter in the filter chain so that failed requests still go through the other filters you mentioned. If you're having trouble with that, a variation would be to do an HTTP redirect instead of a forward, like this:
try {
chain.doFilter(request, response);
} catch (NoHandlerFoundException e) {
request.getSession().setAttribute("exception", e);
response.sendRedirect("/servlet-exception.vm");
}
That would force the browser to request your error handling page as a new http request, which might make it easier to ensure it goes through all of the right filters first. If you need the original exception object, then you could put it in the session instead of the request.

Answer 2

maybe
<filter-mapping>
<filter-name>SomeFilter</filter-name>
<url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
<dispatcher>ERROR</dispatcher>
<dispatcher>REQUEST</dispatcher>
</filter-mapping>