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RESTEasy Response vs. W3C spec

How does the RESTEasy javax.ws.rs.core.Response and javax.ws.rs.core.ResponseBuilder related to the w3c HTTP (section 6.1) response spec?

W2C defines the HTTP response as:

   Response      = Status-Line               ; Section 6.1
                   *(( general-header        ; Section 4.5
                    | response-header        ; Section 6.2
                    | entity-header ) CRLF)  ; Section 7.1
                   CRLF
                   [ message-body ]          ; Section 7.2

and RESTEasy defines these methods (among others) on the ResponseBuilder object:

  • status
  • header
  • type
  • entity

The header method I understand allows you to enter custom headers into the response. status populates the Status-Code header and type, the Content-Type header.

However, I don't understand the role of entity does it populate the entity-header or the message-body or what?? Also does the header method allow you to populate standard headers?? And if I am returning a message describing the reason for the error should this be in the entity-header, message-body or should I populate the Reason-Phrase header?

Solution

  • The entity() populates the message-body. The header() allows you to populate any response header (standard op proprietary). I'm not aware of a possibility to set the reason phrase (which is not a header).