Issue with convertDateTime when backing bean date is null

[borisrodman]

I would like to navigate to a page responsible for setting a date on a backing bean:
The backing bean (cof) is already loaded in the seam context
but its date property is not yet set (null)

the page code is

<h:inputText id="date" value="cof.date" required="false">
 <s:convertDateTime pattern="MM/dd/yyyy"/>
</h:inputText>
<s:selectDate for="date" >
 <h:graphicImage url="../img/dtpick.gif" style="margin-left:5px"/>
</s:selectDate>

Issue is:
When I navigate to this page I get the following error message:
java.text.ParseException: Unparseable date: "cof.date"



Does anyone knows a workaround that do not involve presetting the date on the backing bean before rendering the page ?

regards
boris

[pmuir]

The value should be an EL expression surely