Files
spring-boot-demo/problem-details/docs/05-content-negotiation.md
T
asmhatreandClaude Opus 5 926250e1a9 Add problem-details: global exception handling with RFC 9457
Companion code for "Global Exception Handling with ProblemDetail (RFC 9457)
in Spring Boot 4". Thirteen failures under five handling setups (Boot
defaults, the Boot flag, a ResponseEntityExceptionHandler advice, advice
plus an ErrorController, a catch-all ordered first), validation errors,
i18n, content negotiation, Security's 401/403, silent 500s and decoding
on the client. 16 tests pin the behaviour.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01C3TETMrqVUWeFkNtz3Jbo3
2026-09-11 17:12:22 +00:00

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1.6 KiB
Markdown

# 5. Content negotiation: why `Accept: application/xml` gets JSON
[← 4. Types and message codes](04-i18n-and-types.md) · [Index](../README.md) · Next: [6. Outside Spring MVC →](06-outside-mvc.md)
With `jackson-dataformat-xml` on the classpath a successful response honours `Accept:
application/xml`. An error response to the same request does not
([`content-negotiation.txt`](output/content-negotiation.txt)):
| `Accept` | `GET /orders/1` (200) | `GET /orders/999` (404) |
|---|---|---|
| `application/json` | `application/json` | `application/problem+json` |
| `application/xml` | `application/xml` | **`application/problem+json`** |
| `application/problem+xml` | - | `application/problem+xml` |
| `text/html` | - | `application/problem+json` |
| `image/png` | - | `application/problem+json` (still 404, not 406) |
For a `ProblemDetail` body the producible types are `application/problem+json` and
`application/problem+xml`. `application/xml` is compatible with neither - `problem+xml` is a
different subtype, not a specialisation - so negotiation finds no match and Spring falls back to
JSON rather than failing the error response with a 406. The fallback is the right call; the
surprise is that an XML client must ask for `application/problem+xml` by name to get XML errors.
The XML body uses the RFC's namespace, which RFC 9457 kept from 7807:
```
<problem xmlns="urn:ietf:rfc:7807"><detail>Order 999 does not exist</detail><instance>/orders/999</instance><status>404</status><title>Order not found</title><type>https://ankurm.com/problems/order-not-found</type><orderId>999</orderId></problem>
```