Spring Boot Mastery #12: HTTP Status Codes & ResponseEntity Explained
Welcome to Spring Boot Mastery #12 by Hosiyar.com.
In the previous video, we implemented Exception Handling in our Course Management System project. We created custom exceptions, used @RestControllerAdvice, @ExceptionHandler, and returned cleaner error messages to the client.
But there was still one important issue.
Even though our response body had a proper custom message, the HTTP status code was not always correct.
For example:
Course created, but response was still 200 OK
Course deleted, but response was still 200 OK
Error message returned, but status code was still 200 OK
Update operation completed, but response status was not precise
This is not how professional REST APIs should behave.
In real-world applications, the response should not only contain a message or data. A proper HTTP response should contain:
✅ Response Body
✅ HTTP Status Code
✅ Headers
That is exactly what we will discuss in this video.
We will understand the importance of HTTP status codes and why clients depend on them to understand whether a request was successful, failed, created something, deleted something, or produced an error.
Then we will introduce ResponseEntity in Spring Boot.
ResponseEntity allows us to control the complete HTTP response, including body, status code, and headers. We will use it in our Course Management System project and update all our APIs to return more meaningful responses.
In this video, we will cover:
✅ Recap of exception handling
✅ Problem with returning only custom messages
✅ Problem of 200 OK for every response
✅ Why HTTP status codes are important
✅ What an ideal HTTP response contains
✅ Response body
✅ HTTP status code
✅ Headers
✅ What is ResponseEntity?
✅ Why ResponseEntity is used in Spring Boot
✅ Returning proper status code for create API
✅ Returning proper status code for get API
✅ Returning proper status code for update API
✅ Returning proper status code for delete API
✅ Returning proper status code for exception response
✅ Popular HTTP status codes
✅ Making REST APIs more professional
Important HTTP Status Codes Discussed
In this video, we will discuss popular and commonly used HTTP status codes such as:
✅ 200 OK
Used when the request is successful.
✅ 201 Created
Used when a new resource is created successfully.
✅ 204 No Content
Used when the request is successful but there is no response body.
✅ 400 Bad Request
Used when the client sends invalid request data.
✅ 401 Unauthorized
Used when authentication is required or failed.
✅ 403 Forbidden
Used when the user is authenticated but does not have permission.
✅ 404 Not Found
Used when the requested resource does not exist.
✅ 409 Conflict
Used when the request conflicts with the current state of the resource.
✅ 500 Internal Server Error
Used when something goes wrong on the server side.
Response Flow Before and After-
Before using ResponseEntity:
Response body is custom,
but status code may still be 200 OK.
After using ResponseEntity:
Response body + proper status code + headers
Example:
{
"message": "Course not found with id: 5",
"status": 404,
"timestamp": "..."
}
With HTTP status:
404 Not Found
Now the client can clearly understand both:
What happened?
from the response body
and
What type of result is this?
from the status code
By the end of this video:
You will understand why HTTP status codes are important in REST APIs and how to return proper responses using ResponseEntity in Spring Boot.
You will also understand how to make your API responses more precise by including the correct status code along with the response body.
This video is an important step in making our Course Management System project closer to real-world API standards.
Short Description
In this video, we continue our Spring Boot Course Management System project and improve our API responses using HTTP status codes and ResponseEntity. We discuss why returning 200 OK for every response is not correct, what an ideal HTTP response contains, response body, status code, headers, popular HTTP status codes, and how to use ResponseEntity in all CRUD and exception-handling methods.
#SpringBoot #ResponseEntity #HTTPStatusCodes #RESTAPI #JavaBackendDevelopment #SpringBootProject #HosiyarDotCom