how to handle empty form fields

[Kevin HaleBoyes <kz...@yahoo.com>]

I have a form field that is to represent a Date value.
I input it using a <html:text> tag

        <html:text property="assignedDate" size="12"/>

and it corresponds to a String field in the form bean.
It is an optional field and not usually filled in.

In the business logic I call

        BeanUtils.copyProperties(lrdto, lrform);

to copy from the form bean to the DTO.  In the DTO the
assignedDate property has the type java.sql.Date.

When the field is left empty on the form I get a
org.apache.commons.beanutils.ConversionException exception
from copyProperties() that was generated by SqlDateConverter.

I'm wondering how to avoid the exception.
If I set a value into the field before I submit the form then
it works fine.  I only run into the exception when I leave the
field blank but my business requirements state that this field
is optional.

There are a __lot__ of questions regarding Date input and
validation in the archives but I didn't find anything about
this exception or optional Date fields.

Thanks for any help,
Kevin.


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