Custom Response + HTTP status?

Question

I have a rest interface for my project. For one class i have a POST method where you can post an xml and i RETURN a custom response like:

<customResponse>Invalid email</customResponse>

if the email from the xml which was posted, was incorrect + other custom messages i have defined for different situations.

For all of these the HTTP STATUS is automatically put on 200 (OK). Is there any way to change it?

Ps: I know that i can throw a web application like :

throw new WebApplicationException(Response.Status.BAD_REQUEST);

but in this case my custom response is no more included.

So i just want to return my custom error + 400 as http response.

Thanks in advance.

UPDATE after comments: My method is:

 @POST
 @Path("{membershipExternalId}")
 @Consumes(MediaType.APPLICATION_XML)
 @Produces("application/xml")
 public CustomResponse invite(){ //code}

You see that i return my CUSTOM RESPONSE. If i would return simple RESPONSE i could set the STATUS but in this case i cannot see any way.

Answer 1

Found the solution:

Put the return type as Response to the method:

     @POST
     @Path("{membershipExternalId}")
     @Consumes(MediaType.APPLICATION_XML)
     @Produces("application/xml")
     public Response invite(){ //code

     if (fail())
        return Response.status(400).entity(customResponse).build();
}

Response.status(400).entity(customResponse) will do the trick. When build() it will convert your custom response xml =>

HTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request
Server: Apache-Coyote/1.1
X-Powered-By: Servlet 2.4; JBoss-4.2.3.GA (build: SVNTag=JBoss_4_2_3_GA date=200807181439)/JBossWeb-2.0
Set-Cookie: JSESSIONID=1C72921619A6B32BC1166B3567A39ADA; Path=/
Content-Type: application/xml
Content-Length: 140
Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 12:15:15 GMT
Connection: close

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?><customResponse><message>Invalid email</message></customResponse>

Answer 2

setStatus or sendError on HttpServletResponse should do the trick.