Feign ErrorDecoder : retrieve the original message

It is suggested to use input stream instead of reader and map it to your object.

package com.clientui.exceptions;

import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.DeserializationFeature;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper;
import com.google.common.io.CharStreams;
import feign.Response;
import feign.codec.ErrorDecoder;
import lombok.*;

import java.io.*;

public class CustomErrorDecoder implements ErrorDecoder {

    private final ErrorDecoder errorDecoder = new Default();

    @Override
    public Exception decode(String s, Response response) {

        String message = null;
        InputStream responseBodyIs = null;
        try {
            responseBodyIs = response.body().asInputStream();
            ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
            ExceptionMessage exceptionMessage = mapper.readValue(responseBodyIs, ExceptionMessage.class);

            message = exceptionMessage.message;

        } catch (IOException e) {

            e.printStackTrace();
            // you could also return an exception
            return new errorMessageFormatException(e.getMessage());
        }finally {

            //It is the responsibility of the caller to close the stream.
            try {
                if (responseBodyIs != null)
                    responseBodyIs.close();
            } catch (IOException e) {
                e.printStackTrace();
            }
        }

        switch (response.status()) {

            case 404:
                return new FileNotFoundException(message == null ? "File no found" :
                        message);
            case 403:
                return new ForbiddenAccessException(message == null ? "Forbidden access" : message);

        }

        return errorDecoder.decode(s, response);
    }

    @Getter
    @Setter
    @NoArgsConstructor
    @AllArgsConstructor
    @ToString
    public static class ExceptionMessage{

        private String timestamp;
        private int status;
        private String error;
        private String message;
        private String path;

    }
}

If you're like me and really just want the content out of a failed Feign call without all these custom decoders and boilerplate, there is a hacky way do this.

If we look at FeignException when it is being created and a response body exists, it assembles the exception message like so:

if (response.body() != null) {
    String body = Util.toString(response.body().asReader());
    message += "; content:\n" + body;
}

Therefore if you're after the response body, you can just pull it out by parsing the Exception message since it is delimited by a newline.

String[] feignExceptionMessageParts = e.getMessage().split("\n");
String responseContent = feignExceptionMessageParts[1];

And if you want the object, you can use something like Jackson:

MyResponseBodyPojo errorBody = objectMapper.readValue(responseContent, MyResponseBodyPojo.class);

I do not claim this is a smart approach or a best practice.

If you want to get the response payload body, with the Feign exception, just use this method:

feignException.contentUTF8();

Example:

    try {
        itemResponse = call(); //method with the feign call
    } catch (FeignException e) {
        logger.error("ResponseBody: " + e.contentUTF8());
    }

Here is a solution, the message is actually in the response body as a stream.

package com.clientui.exceptions;

import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.DeserializationFeature;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper;
import com.google.common.io.CharStreams;
import feign.Response;
import feign.codec.ErrorDecoder;
import lombok.*;

import java.io.*;

public class CustomErrorDecoder implements ErrorDecoder {

    private final ErrorDecoder errorDecoder = new Default();

    @Override
    public Exception decode(String s, Response response) {

        String message = null;
        Reader reader = null;

        try {
            reader = response.body().asReader();
            //Easy way to read the stream and get a String object
            String result = CharStreams.toString(reader);
            //use a Jackson ObjectMapper to convert the Json String into a 
            //Pojo
            ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
            //just in case you missed an attribute in the Pojo     
          mapper.disable(DeserializationFeature.FAIL_ON_UNKNOWN_PROPERTIES);
            //init the Pojo
            ExceptionMessage exceptionMessage = mapper.readValue(result, 
                                                ExceptionMessage.class);

            message = exceptionMessage.message;

        } catch (IOException e) {

            e.printStackTrace();
        }finally {

            //It is the responsibility of the caller to close the stream.
            try {

                if (reader != null)
                    reader.close();

            } catch (IOException e) {
                e.printStackTrace();
            }
        }

        switch (response.status()) {

            case 404:
                return new FileNotFoundException(message == null ? "File no found" : 
                                                                     message);
            case 403:
                return new ForbiddenAccessException(message == null ? "Forbidden 
                                                              access" : message);

        }

        return errorDecoder.decode(s, response);
    }

    @Getter
    @Setter
    @NoArgsConstructor
    @AllArgsConstructor
    @ToString
    public static class ExceptionMessage{

        private String timestamp;
        private int status;
        private String error;
        private String message;
        private String path;

    }
}