Spring Allow null handling with @InitBinder & PropertyEditor/Converter/Formatter to handle null values.

With @InitBinder it is currently possible to register various property handlers to customize the web request data binding via binder.registerCustomEditor(Class<?>, String, PropertyEditor), binder.addCustomFormatter(Formatter<?>, String...) or using a Converter. However none of these get called if the property is absent from the request.

I don't know if this is a bug or desired behavour, but there should be at least the possibility to handle such cases.

Current Behavior However none of those get invoked when a property is missing from the request. That is it only works if the property is explicitly sent as null in the request.

Desired Behavior PropertyEditor / Formatter / Converter gets called if an optional property is absent from the request. And not just when explicitely set as null.