Exception Clause

Exception Clause

You can use the Exception Clause in the Java DSL to specify the error handling you require on a per exception type basis using the onException() method.

To get started we give quick sample before digging into how it works.
For example if you want to perform a specific piece of processing if a certain exception is raised you can do this simply via:

onException(ValidationException.class).
  to("activemq:validationFailed");
  
from("seda:inputA").
  to("validation:foo/bar.xsd", "activemq:someQueue");

from("seda:inputB").to("direct:foo").
  to("rnc:mySchema.rnc", "activemq:anotherQueue");

Here if the processing of seda:inputA or seda:inputB cause a ValidationException to be thrown (such as due to the XSD validation of the Validation component or the Relax NG Compact syntax validation of the Jing component), then the message will be sent to activemq:validationFailed queue.

You can define multiple onException clauses for different behavior

onException(ValidationException.class).
  to("activemq:validationFailed");

onException(ShipOrderException.class).
  to("activemq:shipFailed");

from("seda:order").to("bean:processOrder");

Scopes

Exception clauses is scoped as either:

• global
• or route specific

Where the global are the simplest and most easy to understand. In the advanced section we dig into the route specific and even combining them. However

How does Camel select which clause should handle a given thrown Exception

Camel uses DefaultExceptionPolicyStrategy to determine a strategy how an exception being thrown should be handled by which onException clause. The strategy is:

• the order in which the onException is configured takes precedence. Camel will test from first...last defined.
• Camel will start from the bottom (nested caused by) and recursive up in the exception hierarchy to find the first matching onException clause
• instanceof test is used for testing the given exception with the onException clause defined exception list. An exact instanceof match will always be used, otherwise the onException clause that has an exception that is the closets super of the thrown exception is selected (recurring up the exception hierarchy)

This is best illustrated with an exception:

onException(IOException.class).maximumRedeliveries(3);

onException(OrderFailedException.class).maximumRedeliveries(2);

In the sample above we have defined two exceptions in which IOException is first, so Camel will pickup this exception if there is a match. IOException that is more general is selected then.

So if an exception is thrown with this hierarchy:

+ RuntimeCamelException (wrapper exception by Camel)
   + OrderFailedException 
       + IOException
            + FileNotFoundException

Then Camel will try testing the exception in this order: FileNotFoundException, IOException, OrderFailedException and RuntimeCamelException.
As we have defined a onException(IOException.class) Camel will select this as it's the closest match.

If we add a third onException clause with the FileNotFoundException

onException(IOException.class).maximumRedeliveries(3);

onException(OrderFailedException.class).maximumRedeliveries(2);

onException(FileNotFoundException.class).handled(true).to("log:nofile");

Then with the previous example Camel will now use the last onException(FileNotFoundException.class) as its an exact match. Since this is an exact match it will override the general IOException that was used before to handle the same exception thrown.

Now a new situation if this exception was thrown instead:

+ RuntimeCamelException (wrapper exception by Camel)
   + OrderFailedException 
       + OrderNotFoundException

Then the onException(OrderFailedException.class) will be selected - no surprise here.

And this last sample demonstrates the instanceof test aspect in which Camel will select an exception if it's an instance of the defined exception in the onException clause. Illustrated as:

+ RuntimeCamelException (wrapper exception by Camel)
   + SocketException

Since SocketException is an instanceof IOException, Camel will select the onException(IOException.class) clause.

Configuring ReliveryPolicy (redeliver options)

The default error handler used in Camel is the Dead Letter Channel which supports attempting to redeliver the message exchange a number of times before sending it to a dead letter endpoint. See Dead Letter Channel for further information about redeliver and which redeliver options exists.

Sometimes you want to configure the redelivery policy on a per exception type basis. By default in the top examples, if a ValidationException occurs then the message will not be redelivered; however if some other exception occurs (IOException or whatelse) the route will be retried according to the settings from the Dead Letter Channel.

However if you want to customize any methods on the RedeliveryPolicy object, you can do this via the fluent API. So lets retry in case of ValidationException up till two times.

onException(ValidationException.class).
  maximumRedeliveries(2);

And the spring DSL:

<onException>
   <exception>com.mycompany.ValidationException</exception>
   <redeliveryPolicy maximumRedeliveries="2"/>
</onException>

You can customize any of the RedeliveryPolicy so we can for instance set a different delay of 5000 millis:

<onException>
   <exception>com.mycompany.ValidationException</exception>
   <redeliveryPolicy maximumRedeliveries="2" delay="5000"/>
</onException>

Reusing ReliveryPolicy

Available as of Camel 1.5.1 or later
You can reference a RedeliveryPolicy so you can reuse existing configurations and use standard spring bean style configuration that supports property placeholders.

    <bean id="myRedeliveryPolicy" class="org.apache.camel.processor.RedeliveryPolicy">
        <property name="maximumRedeliveries" value="${myprop.max}"/>
    </bean>

     <onException>
         <!-- you can define multiple exceptions just adding more exception elements as show below -->
         <exception>com.mycompany.MyFirstException</exception>
         <exception>com.mycompany.MySecondException</exception>

         <!-- here we reference our redelivery policy defined above -->
         <redeliveryPolicy ref="myRedeliveryPolicy"/>
     </onException>

Catching multiple exceptions

Available as of Camel 1.5

In Camel 1.5 the exception clauses has been renamed to onException and it also supports multiple exception classes:

onException(MyBusinessException.class, MyOtherBusinessException.class)
  .maximumRedeliveries(2)
  .to("activemq:businessFailed");

And in Spring DSL you just add another exception element:

<onException>
   <exception>com.mycompany.MyBusinessException</exception>
   <exception>com.mycompany.MyOtherBusinessException</exception>
   <redeliveryPolicy maximumRedeliveries="2"/>
   <to uri="activemq:businessFailed"/>
</onException>

Marking exceptions as being handled

Available as of Camel 1.5

Using onException to handle known exceptions is a very powerful feature in Camel. However prior to Camel 1.5 you could not mark the exception as being handled, so the caller would still receive the caused exception as a response. In Camel 1.5 you can now change this behavior with the new handle DSL. The handle is a Predicate that is overloaded to accept three types of parameters:

• Boolean
• Predicate
• Expression that will be evaluates as a Predicate using this rule set: If the expressions returns a Boolean its used directly. For any other response its regarded as true if the response is not null.

For instance to mark all ValidationException as being handled we can do this:

  onException(ValidationException).handled(true);

Example using handled

In this route below we want to do special handling of all OrderFailedException as we want to return a customized response to the caller. First we setup our routing as:

Then we have our service beans that is just plain POJO demonstrating how you can use Bean Integration in Camel to avoid being tied to the Camel API:

And finally the exception that is being thrown is just a regular exception:

So what happens?

If we sent an order that is being processed OK then the caller will receive an Exchange as reply containing Order OK as the payload and orderid=123 in a header.

If the order could not be processed and thus an OrderFailedException was thrown the caller will not receive this exception (as opposed to in Camel 1.4, where the caller received the OrderFailedException) but our customized response that we have fabricated in the orderFailed method in our OrderService. So the caller receives an Exchange with the payload Order ERROR and a orderid=failed in a header.

Using handled with Spring DSL

The same route as above in Spring DSL:

Handling and sending a fixed response back to the client

In the route above we handled the exception but routed it to a different endpoint. What if you need to alter the response and send a fixed response back to the original caller (the client). No secret here just do as you do in normal Camel routing, use transform to set the response, as shown in the sample below:

We modify the sample slightly to return the original caused exception message instead of the fixed text Sorry:

And we can use the Simple language to set a readable error message with the caused excepetion message:

Advanced Usage of Exception Clause

Using global and per route exception clauses

Camel supports quite advanced configuration of exception clauses.

You can define exception clauses either as:

• global
• or route specific

We start off with the sample sample that we change over time. First off we use only global exception clauses:

In the next sample we change the global exception policies to be pure route specific.

And now it gets complex as we combine global and route specific exception policies as we introduce a 2nd route in the sample:

Notice that we can define the same exception MyFunctionalException in both routes, but they are configured differently and thus is handled different depending on the route. You can of course also add a new onException to one of the routes so it has an additional exception policy.

And finally we top this by throwing in a nested error handler as well, as we add the 3rd route shown below:

Using fine grained selection using onWhen predicate

Available as of Camel 1.5.1 or later

You can attach an Expression to the exception clause to have fine grained control when a clause should be selected or not. As it's an Expression you can use any kind of code to perform the test. Here is a sample:

In the sample above we have two onException's defined. The first has an onWhen expression attached to only trigger if the message has a header with the key user that is not null. If so this clause is selected and is handling the thrown exception. The 2nd clause is a for coarse gained selection to select the same exception being thrown but when the expression is evaluated to false. Notice: this is not required, if the 2nd clause is omitted, then the default error handler will kick in.

Using fine grained retry using retryUntil predicate

Available as of Camel 2.0

When you need fine grained control for determining if an exchange should be retried or not you can use the retryUntil predicate. Camel will redeliver until the predicate returns false.
This is demonstrated in the sample below:

Where the bean myRetryHandler is computing if we should retry or not:

Using custom ExceptionPolicyStrategy

Available in Camel 1.4

The default ExceptionPolicyStrategy in Camel should be sufficient in nearly all use-cases (see section How does Camel select which clause should handle a given thrown Exception). However if you need to use your own this can be configued as the sample below illustrates:

Using our own strategy MyPolicy we can change the default behavior of Camel with our own code to resolve which ExceptionType from above should be handling the given thrown exception.

Using the exception clause in Spring DSL

You can use all of the above mentioned exception clause features in the Spring DSL as well. Here are a few examples:

• Global scoped - Available in Camel 2.0
  Error formatting macro: snippet: java.lang.NullPointerException

• Route specific scoped
  Error formatting macro: snippet: java.lang.NullPointerException

See also

The Error Handler for the general error handling documentation
The Dead Letter Channel for further details.
The Transactional Client for transactional behavior