title: Error: Attempted to call method "format" on null context object
body: <p><em>Spring-boot v1.4.1</em><br>
  <em>Java v1.8</em><br>
  <em>Thymeleaf v2.1.5.</em></p>
  
  <p>The following line of code in my view:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;td th:each = "sprint : ${sprints}" th:text = "${sprint.releaseDate} ? ${#temporals.format(sprint.releaseDate, 'MMM/dd/yyyy')}"&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>which has syntax I am basing off of the S.O. question <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/36936910/springboot-thymeleaf-ordinal-numbers">SpringBoot Thymeleaf Ordinal Numbers</a>, 
  produces the error:<br></p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>org.springframework.expression.spel.SpelEvaluationException: EL1011E:(pos 11): Method call: Attempted to call method
    format(java.time.LocalDate,java.lang.String) on null context object</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>However, if I run this line of code without the Thymeleaf formatting it works and renders a table of LocalDate objects in default format ("2016-05-25").</p>
  
  <p><strong>Question:</strong> Why am I getting a 'null context object' error and what does that mean?  And how can I edit to get the formatting I want?</p>