Trigger 404 in Spring-MVC controller?

Solution 1:

Since Spring 3.0 you also can throw an Exception declared with @ResponseStatus annotation:

@ResponseStatus(value = HttpStatus.NOT_FOUND)
public class ResourceNotFoundException extends RuntimeException {
    ...
}

@Controller
public class SomeController {
    @RequestMapping.....
    public void handleCall() {
        if (isFound()) {
            // whatever
        }
        else {
            throw new ResourceNotFoundException(); 
        }
    }
}

Solution 2:

Starting from Spring 5.0, you don't necessarily need to create additional exceptions:

throw new ResponseStatusException(NOT_FOUND, "Unable to find resource");

Also, you can cover multiple scenarios with one, built-in exception and you have more control.

See more:

• ResponseStatusException (javadoc)
• https://www.baeldung.com/spring-response-status-exception