Under PROJECT/resources create a file called error.template. Inside this file, place the formatted error template you want to return when a custom exception is thrown. If no custom template is given, the following default template will be used:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <error> %s </error>

Annotate the custom exception class with @Exception(*httpStatus*, *contentType*). The defaults are httpStatus = HttpStatus.INTERNAL_SERVER_ERROR and contentType = MediaType.APPLICATION_XML_VALUE.

The custom message is taken from the custom annotation class itself, so any parameters you'd like to insert need to be handled there.

Make sure to add <bean id="exceptionResolver" class="com.github.raychatter.AnnotationHandler" /> to your XML.

And that's it!