You could register an instance of java.util.Date
as a request scoped bean in faces-config.xml
.
<managed-bean>
<managed-bean-name>currentDate</managed-bean-name>
<managed-bean-class>java.util.Date</managed-bean-class>
<managed-bean-scope>request</managed-bean-scope>
</managed-bean>
This way it’s available as #{currentDate}
without the need for a custom backing bean class.
Update: the JSF utility library OmniFaces has such a bean already registered as #{now}
. So if you happen to use OmniFaces already, you can just make use of it directly.
<h:outputText value="#{now}">
<f:convertDateTime pattern="MM/dd/yyyy" type="date" />
</h:outputText>