Reading httprequest content from spring exception handler

Question

I Am using Spring's @ExceptionHandler annotation to catch exceptions in my controllers.

Some requests hold POST data as plain XML string written to the request body, I want to read that data in order to log the exception. The problem is that when i request the inputstream in the exception handler and try to read from it the stream returns -1 (empty).

The exception handler signature is:

@ExceptionHandler(Throwable.class)
public ModelAndView exception(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response, HttpSession session, Throwable arff)

Any thoughts? Is there a way to access the request body?

My controller:

@Controller
@RequestMapping("/user/**")
public class UserController {

    static final Logger LOG = LoggerFactory.getLogger(UserController.class);

    @Autowired
    IUserService userService;


    @RequestMapping("/user")
    public ModelAndView getCurrent() {
        return new ModelAndView("user","response", userService.getCurrent());
    }

    @RequestMapping("/user/firstLogin")
    public ModelAndView firstLogin(HttpSession session) {
        userService.logUser(session.getId());
        userService.setOriginalAuthority();
        return new ModelAndView("user","response", userService.getCurrent());
    }


    @RequestMapping("/user/login/failure")
    public ModelAndView loginFailed() {
        LOG.debug("loginFailed()");
        Status status = new Status(-1,"Bad login");
        return new ModelAndView("/user/login/failure", "response",status);
    }

    @RequestMapping("/user/login/unauthorized")
    public ModelAndView unauthorized() {
        LOG.debug("unauthorized()");
        Status status = new Status(-1,"Unauthorized.Please login first.");
        return new ModelAndView("/user/login/unauthorized","response",status);
    }

    @RequestMapping("/user/logout/success")
    public ModelAndView logoutSuccess() {
        LOG.debug("logout()");
        Status status = new Status(0,"Successful logout");
        return new ModelAndView("/user/logout/success", "response",status);

    }

    @RequestMapping(value = "/user/{id}", method = RequestMethod.POST)
    public ModelAndView create(@RequestBody UserDTO userDTO, @PathVariable("id") Long id) {
        return new ModelAndView("user", "response", userService.create(userDTO, id));
    }

    @RequestMapping(value = "/user/{id}", method = RequestMethod.GET)
    public ModelAndView getUserById(@PathVariable("id") Long id) {
        return new ModelAndView("user", "response", userService.getUserById(id));
    }

    @RequestMapping(value = "/user/update/{id}", method = RequestMethod.POST)
    public ModelAndView update(@RequestBody UserDTO userDTO, @PathVariable("id") Long id) {
        return new ModelAndView("user", "response", userService.update(userDTO, id));
    }

    @RequestMapping(value = "/user/all", method = RequestMethod.GET)
    public ModelAndView list() {
        return new ModelAndView("user", "response", userService.list());
    }

    @RequestMapping(value = "/user/allowedAccounts", method = RequestMethod.GET)
    public ModelAndView getAllowedAccounts() {
        return new ModelAndView("user", "response", userService.getAllowedAccounts());
    }

    @RequestMapping(value = "/user/changeAccount/{accountId}", method = RequestMethod.GET)
    public ModelAndView changeAccount(@PathVariable("accountId") Long accountId) {
        Status st = userService.changeAccount(accountId);
        if (st.code != -1) {
            return getCurrent();
        }
        else {
            return new ModelAndView("user", "response", st);
        }
    }
    /*
    @RequestMapping(value = "/user/logout", method = RequestMethod.GET)
    public void perLogout(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws ServletException, IOException {
        userService.setOriginalAuthority();
        response.sendRedirect("/marketplace/user/logout/spring");
    }
     */

    @ExceptionHandler(Throwable.class)
public ModelAndView exception(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response, HttpSession session, Throwable arff) {
    Status st = new Status();
    try {
        Writer writer = new StringWriter();
        byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];

        //Reader reader2 = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(request.getInputStream()));
        InputStream reader = request.getInputStream();
        int n;
        while ((n = reader.read(buffer)) != -1) {
            writer.toString();

        }
        String retval = writer.toString();
        retval = "";
        } catch (IOException e) {

            e.printStackTrace();
        }

        return new ModelAndView("profile", "response", st);
    }
}

Thank you

Answer 1

I've tried your code and I've found some mistakes in the exception handler, when you read from the InputStream:

Writer writer = new StringWriter();
byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];

//Reader reader2 = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(request.getInputStream()));
InputStream reader = request.getInputStream();
int n;
while ((n = reader.read(buffer)) != -1) {
    writer.toString();

}
String retval = writer.toString();
retval = "";

I've replaced your code with this one:

BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new   InputStreamReader(request.getInputStream()));
String line = "";
StringBuilder stringBuilder = new StringBuilder();
while ( (line=reader.readLine()) != null ) {
    stringBuilder.append(line).append("\n");
}

String retval = stringBuilder.toString();

Then I'm able to read from InputStream in the exception handler, it works! If you can't still read from InputStream, I suggest you to check how you POST xml data to the request body. You should consider that you can consume the Inputstream only one time per request, so I suggest you to check that there isn't any other call to getInputStream(). If you have to call it two or more times you should write a custom HttpServletRequestWrapper like this to make a copy of the request body, so you can read it more times.

UPDATE
Your comments has helped me to reproduce the issue. You use the annotation @RequestBody, so it's true that you don't call getInputStream(), but Spring invokes it to retrieve the request's body. Have a look at the class org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.support.HandlerMethodInvoker: if you use @RequestBody this class invokes resolveRequestBody method, and so on... finally you can't read anymore the InputStream from your ServletRequest. If you still want to use both @RequestBody and getInputStream() in your own method, you have to wrap the request to a custom HttpServletRequestWrapper to make a copy of the request body, so you can manually read it more times. This is my wrapper:

public class CustomHttpServletRequestWrapper extends HttpServletRequestWrapper {

    private static final Logger logger = Logger.getLogger(CustomHttpServletRequestWrapper.class);
    private final String body;

    public CustomHttpServletRequestWrapper(HttpServletRequest request) {
        super(request);

        StringBuilder stringBuilder = new StringBuilder();
        BufferedReader bufferedReader = null;

        try {
            InputStream inputStream = request.getInputStream();
            if (inputStream != null) {
                bufferedReader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(inputStream));
                String line = "";
                while ((line = bufferedReader.readLine()) != null) {
                    stringBuilder.append(line).append("\n");
                }
            } else {
                stringBuilder.append("");
            }
        } catch (IOException ex) {
            logger.error("Error reading the request body...");
        } finally {
            if (bufferedReader != null) {
                try {
                    bufferedReader.close();
                } catch (IOException ex) {
                    logger.error("Error closing bufferedReader...");
                }
            }
        }

        body = stringBuilder.toString();
    }

    @Override
    public ServletInputStream getInputStream() throws IOException {
        final StringReader reader = new StringReader(body);
        ServletInputStream inputStream = new ServletInputStream() {
            public int read() throws IOException {
                return reader.read();
            }
        };
        return inputStream;
    }
}

Then you should write a simple Filter to wrap the request:

public class MyFilter implements Filter {

    public void init(FilterConfig fc) throws ServletException {

    }

    public void doFilter(ServletRequest request, ServletResponse response, FilterChain chain) throws IOException, ServletException {
        chain.doFilter(new CustomHttpServletRequestWrapper((HttpServletRequest)request), response);

    }

    public void destroy() {

    }

}

Finally, you have to configure your filter in your web.xml:

<filter>     
    <filter-name>MyFilter</filter-name>   
    <filter-class>test.MyFilter</filter-class>  
</filter> 
<filter-mapping>   
    <filter-name>MyFilter</filter-name>   
    <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>   
</filter-mapping>

You can fire your filter only for controllers that really needs it, so you should change the url-pattern according to your needs.

If you need this feature in only one controller, you can also make a copy of the request body in that controller when you receive it through the @RequestBody annotation.

Answer 2

Recently I faced this issue and solved it slightly differently. With spring boot 1.3.5.RELEASE

The filter was implemented using the Spring class ContentCachingRequestWrapper. This wrapper has a method getContentAsByteArray() which can be invoked multiple times.

import org.springframework.web.util.ContentCachingRequestWrapper;
public class RequestBodyCachingFilter implements Filter {

    public void init(FilterConfig fc) throws ServletException {
    }

    public void doFilter(ServletRequest request, ServletResponse response, FilterChain chain) throws IOException, ServletException {
        chain.doFilter(new ContentCachingRequestWrapper((HttpServletRequest)request), response);
    }

    public void destroy() {
    }
}

Added the filter to the chain

@Bean
public RequestBodyCachingFilter requestBodyCachingFilter() {
    log.debug("Registering Request Body Caching filter");
    return new RequestBodyCachingFilter();
}

In the Exception Handler.

@ControllerAdvice(annotations = RestController.class)
public class GlobalExceptionHandlingControllerAdvice {
    private ContentCachingRequestWrapper getUnderlyingCachingRequest(ServletRequest request) {
        if (ContentCachingRequestWrapper.class.isAssignableFrom(request.getClass())) {
            return (ContentCachingRequestWrapper) request;
        }
        if (request instanceof ServletRequestWrapper) {
            return getUnderlyingCachingRequest(((ServletRequestWrapper)request).getRequest());
        }
        return null;
    }

    @ResponseStatus(value = HttpStatus.INTERNAL_SERVER_ERROR)
    @ExceptionHandler(Throwable.class)
    public @ResponseBody Map<String, String> conflict(Throwable exception, HttpServletRequest request) {
        ContentCachingRequestWrapper underlyingCachingRequest = getUnderlyingCachingRequest(request);
        String body = new String(underlyingCachingRequest.getContentAsByteArray(),Charsets.UTF_8);
        ....
    }
}