How to Prevent Stack Trace from Spring Rest API Exception Handler returning HTTP status 400

Question

I am trying to handle Validation exception in Spring Rest service like code given below:

@Produces("application/json")
    @ExceptionHandler(MethodArgumentNotValidException.class)
    @ResponseStatus(HttpStatus.BAD_REQUEST)
    public @ResponseBody ResponseEntity<ValidationErrorDTO> processValidationError(MethodArgumentNotValidException ex) {
        BindingResult result = ex.getBindingResult();
        List<FieldError> fieldErrors = result.getFieldErrors();
        ResponseEntity<ValidationErrorDTO> re = new ResponseEntity<>(processFieldErrors(fieldErrors), HttpStatus.BAD_REQUEST);   
        return re;
    }

However when this code executes, it returns stack trace appended to the JSON response. I want to get rid of this stack trace and only return JSON error response. Is this possible with Spring 3.1?

{"fieldErrors":    
[{"field":"type","message":"Pattern.shippingAddress.type"}]}<pre>javax.servlet.ServletException: 400 Bad Request null
        at com.ebay.raptor.kernel.dispatcher.HttpDispatchCommand.execute(HttpDispatchCommand.java:142)
        at com.ebay.ebox.pres.cmd.preshandler.CommandDispatchHandler.handleRequest(CommandDispatchHandler.java:59)
        at com.ebay.ebox.pres.cmd.preshandler.CommandDispatchHandler.handleRequest(CommandDispatchHandler.java:13)
        at com.ebay.ebox.pres.cmd.preshandler.CommandHandlerFactory$CalHandler.handleRequest(CommandHandlerFactory.java:114)
        at com.ebay.ebox.pres.cmd.preshandler.CommandHandlerFactory$CalHandler.handleRequest(CommandHandlerFactory.java:75)
        at com.ebay.kernel.pipeline.RequestPipeline.invoke(RequestPipeline.java:18)
        at com.ebay.kernel.pipeline.RequestPipeline.invoke(RequestPipeline.java:12)
        at com.ebay.kernel.pipeline.BasePipeline.callHandler(BasePipeline.java:75)
        at com.ebay.kernel.pipeline.BasePipeline.execute(BasePipeline.java:53)
        at com.ebay.ebox.pres.stage.BaseCommandRequestStageImpl.doWork(BaseCommandRequestStageImpl.java:64)
        at com.ebay.kernel.stage.StageDriver.execute(StageDriver.java:55)
        at com.ebay.ebox.pres.cmd.WebCommandImpl.execute(WebCommandImpl.java:30)
        at com.ebay.raptor.web.RaptorFrontController.process(RaptorFrontController.java:338)
        at com.ebay.raptor.web.RaptorFrontController.doPost(RaptorFrontController.java:554)
        at com.ebay.raptor.web.RaptorGenericController.service(RaptorGenericController.java:64)
        at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:728)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:305)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:210)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.invoke(ApplicationDispatcher.java:749)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.processRequest(ApplicationDispatcher.java:487)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.doForward(ApplicationDispatcher.java:379)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.forward(ApplicationDispatcher.java:339)
        at com.ebay.raptor.kernel.filter.RaptorDispatchFilter.doFilter(RaptorDispatchFilter.java:52)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:243)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:210)
        at com.thetransactioncompany.cors.CORSFilter.doFilter(CORSFilter.java:195)
        at com.thetransactioncompany.cors.CORSFilter.doFilter(CORSFilter.java:266)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:243)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:210)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:222)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:123)
        at org.apache.catalina.authenticator.AuthenticatorBase.invoke(AuthenticatorBase.java:502)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:171)
        at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:99)
        at org.apache.catalina.valves.AccessLogValve.invoke(AccessLogValve.java:953)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:118)
        at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:408)
        at org.apache.coyote.http11.AbstractHttp11Processor.process(AbstractHttp11Processor.java:1023)
        at org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol$AbstractConnectionHandler.process(AbstractProtocol.java:589)
        at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.JIoEndpoint$SocketProcessor.run(JIoEndpoint.java:310)
        at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1145)
        at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:615)
        at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:744)
    </pre>

Answer 1

You can just add the application property server.error.include-stacktrace=never which responds for including stack trace into 400 responses.

Answer 2

You can do like this:

@ExceptionHandler(MethodArgumentNotValidException.class)
@ResponseStatus(HttpStatus.BAD_REQUEST)
public ModelAndView methodArgumentError(HttpServletRequest req, Exception exception) {
    return new JsonError(exception.getMessage()).asModelAndView();
}

Answer 3

You could in your MethodArgumentNotValidException set the stack trace to null if the error is only being returned to the user and not be used for debugging.

Or alternatively, you could just override the getStackTrace() with a @JsonIgnore annotation

@JsonIgnore
@Override
public StackTraceElement[] getStackTrace() {
    return super.getStackTrace();
}

EDIT: I tried all the other solutions but none worked for me.