title: Java JSF: Editing rows in a dataTable tag
body: <p>I am trying to update a row in a JSF data table based on the method in this article: <a href="http://www.mkyong.com/jsf2/how-to-update-row-in-jsf-datatable/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://www.mkyong.com/jsf2/how-to-update-row-in-jsf-datatable/</a></p>
  
  <p>When I click Save, I am getting this error message:</p>
  
  <p><strong>Conversion Error setting value '1970-09-08' for 'null Converter'.</strong></p>
  
  <p>Screenshot:
  <img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/FwIHj.png" alt="Screenshot"></p>
  
  <p>Markup:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;h:form&gt;
                          &lt;h:commandButton action="addEmployee" value="Add New" class="btn btn-primary" /&gt;
                          &lt;br /&gt;
  
                          &lt;h:dataTable class="table table-striped" value="#{employeeCollection.items}" var="item"&gt;
                              &lt;h:column&gt;
                                  &lt;f:facet name="header"&gt;Edit&lt;/f:facet&gt;
                                  &lt;h:commandButton action="#{employeeCollection.edit(item)}" value="Edit" class="btn" rendered="#{not item.isEditing}" /&gt;
                                  &lt;h:commandButton action="#{employeeCollection.save(item)}" value="Save" class="btn btn-success" rendered="#{item.isEditing}" /&gt;
                              &lt;/h:column&gt;
                              &lt;h:column&gt;
                                  &lt;f:facet name="header"&gt;First Name&lt;/f:facet&gt;
                                  &lt;h:inputText value="#{item.firstName}" rendered="#{item.isEditing}" /&gt;
                                  &lt;h:outputText value="#{item.firstName}" rendered="#{not item.isEditing}" /&gt;
                              &lt;/h:column&gt;
                              &lt;h:column&gt;
                                  &lt;f:facet name="header"&gt;Last Name&lt;/f:facet&gt;
                                  &lt;h:inputText value="#{item.lastName}" rendered="#{item.isEditing}" /&gt;
                                  &lt;h:outputText value="#{item.lastName}" rendered="#{not item.isEditing}" /&gt;
                              &lt;/h:column&gt;
                              &lt;h:column&gt;
                                  &lt;f:facet name="header"&gt;Date of Birth&lt;/f:facet&gt;
                                  &lt;h:inputText value="#{item.dateOfBirth}" rendered="#{item.isEditing}" /&gt;
                                  &lt;h:outputText value="#{item.dateOfBirth}" rendered="#{not item.isEditing}" /&gt;
                              &lt;/h:column&gt;
                          &lt;/h:dataTable&gt;
                      &lt;/h:form&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I would post the managed bean code, but I don't think that's necessary because when clicking the Save button, the save(item) function never seems to be called anyway... so it must be something else. I am new to Java, so probably I'm forgetting something very basic here, somewhere...</p>