Java Development Tools

Hi,

<af:inputText label="name" id="it2" binding="#{backingBeanScope.gmain.it2}" rows="2"

                                          columns="20"/>

I want to convert to BigDecimal

BigDecimal t = new BigDecimal(it2.getValue().toString());

But it throws

java.lang.ClassCastException: java.lang.String cannot be cast to java.math.BigDecimal

How do I convert to BigDecimal ?

thanks in advance.