Deluge script to set project start date to blank and/or a specific date

Deluge script to set project start date to blank and/or a specific date

I want to be able to set the project start date to blank under certain conditions, or to the current date under other conditions.

I have a map named "createproject" and I try things like this"

createproject.put("start_date","");

or this

createproject.put("start_date",null);

or this
projstartdate = "1970-01-01".todate()
createproject.put("start_date",projstartdate );

but in every case, the project start date defaults to the current date.

Now, I am creating these projects from a template and the template does have tasks on it.  When I create a project NOT from a template, the project start date shows up as blank and I still don't seem to be able to set this.

I have reached out to Zoho support on this, but thought I'd also check with this community to see if you folks have any suggestions.