Thread: forced HTTP 500 error

Hi all,

I would like to ask for some help.

I made a java servlet. It receives information from sender through http get/post and it processes the information (for example it store received data to database).

My problem is how can I throw back an http 500 exception to the sender if there is an error during data processing?

My code:

protected void doPost(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws ServletException, IOException
    {
        ...
        PrintWriter out = response.getWriter();
        try
        {
            ...
 
            Integer[] i = new Integer[1];
 
            // it will throw an exception
            i[5] = Integer.valueOf(5);
 
            // out.println("ok");
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
           // TODO to write: send back HTTP 500 error
 
            throw new ServletException(ex);
        }
        finally 
        { 
            out.close();
        }
    }

Thank you, alma

Why would you want to send that sort of header under these circumstances? It might be better to send a more informative response that notifies the user - perhaps one that might not drive a user away. That being said, you can modify the header information using the HttpServletResponse object setHeader method.