8.3.6 Mapping to Response Codes

Grails also lets you map HTTP response codes to controllers, actions or views. Just use a method name that matches the response code you are interested in:

static mappings = {
   "403"(controller: "errors", action: "forbidden")
   "404"(controller: "errors", action: "notFound")
   "500"(controller: "errors", action: "serverError")
}

Or you can specify custom error pages:

static mappings = {
   "403"(view: "/errors/forbidden")
   "404"(view: "/errors/notFound")
   "500"(view: "/errors/serverError")
}

Declarative Error Handling

In addition you can configure handlers for individual exceptions:

static mappings = {
   "403"(view: "/errors/forbidden")
   "404"(view: "/errors/notFound")
   "500"(controller: "errors", action: "illegalArgument",
         exception: IllegalArgumentException)
   "500"(controller: "errors", action: "nullPointer",
         exception: NullPointerException)
   "500"(controller: "errors", action: "customException",
         exception: MyException)
   "500"(view: "/errors/serverError")
}

With this configuration, an IllegalArgumentException will be handled by the illegalArgument action in ErrorsController, a NullPointerException will be handled by the nullPointer action, and a MyException will be handled by the customException action. Other exceptions will be handled by the catch-all rule and use the /errors/serverError view.

You can access the exception from your custom error handing view or controller action using the request’s exception attribute like so:

class ErrorController {
    def handleError() {
        def exception = request.exception
        // perform desired processing to handle the exception
    }
}