How to create branching results for @ResponseStatus

caliari77 :

Using @ResponseStatus allows setting the status of a Rest response in Spring. But how could this be used for different kinds of status that could come from the same request?

For example, there is a method in the controller that may return a 200 or a 404. How could I define these statuses just using @ResponseStatus in one method?

BeUndead :

Typically you wouldn't do this with @ResponseStatus. Instead, you can use ResponseEntity<...> as the return type of your method. If the 'type' of returned item can change, ResponseEntity<?> or ResponseEntity<Object> works too.

For example:

@GetMapping("/{key}")
public ResponseEntity<Thing> getThing(final @PathVariable String key) {
    final Thing theThing = this.thingService.get(key);

    final ResponseEntity<?> response;
    if (theThing.someProperty()) {
         response = ResponseEntity.ok(theThing);
    } else {
         response = ResponseEntity.status(HttpStatus.NOT_MODIFIED).body(null);
    }

    return response;
}