qax-os/excelize · error

invalid date value %f, negative values are not supported

Error message

invalid date value %f, negative values are not supported

What it means

Error from newInvalidExcelDateError, returned by ExcelDateToTime when the Excel serial date is negative, which has no calendar representation in this library; at fault is the raw serial float read from or passed for conversion.

Source

Thrown at errors.go:285

	return fmt.Errorf("the operator %q in expression %q is not valid in relation to Blanks/NonBlanks", op, exp)
}

// newInvalidCellNameError defined the error message on receiving the invalid
// cell name.
func newInvalidCellNameError(cell string) error {
	return fmt.Errorf("invalid cell name %q", cell)
}

// newInvalidColumnNameError defined the error message on receiving the
// invalid column name.
func newInvalidColumnNameError(col string) error {
	return fmt.Errorf("invalid column name %q", col)
}

// newInvalidExcelDateError defined the error message on receiving the data
// with negative values.
func newInvalidExcelDateError(dateValue float64) error {
	return fmt.Errorf("invalid date value %f, negative values are not supported", dateValue)
}

// newInvalidLinkTypeError defined the error message on receiving the invalid
// hyper link type.
func newInvalidLinkTypeError(linkType string) error {
	return fmt.Errorf("invalid link type %q", linkType)
}

// newInvalidNameError defined the error message on receiving the invalid
// defined name or table name.
func newInvalidNameError(name string) error {
	return fmt.Errorf("invalid name %q, the name should be starts with a letter or underscore, can not include a space or character, and can not conflict with an existing name in the workbook", name)
}

// newInvalidOptionalValue defined the error message on receiving the invalid
// optional value.
func newInvalidOptionalValue(name, value string, values []string) error {
	return fmt.Errorf("invalid %s value %q, acceptable value should be one of %s", name, value, strings.Join(values, ", "))

View on GitHub (pinned to f2483381fb)

Solutions

1. Guard serial values >= 0 before conversion
2. Reject or sanitize the source cell value that produced the negative serial

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at errors.go:285 when the library encounters an invalid state.

Common situations: See trigger scenarios.

AI-assisted analysis of qax-os/excelize@f2483381fb (2026-09-02). Data as JSON: /api/errors/355e4ccf0d8fb979. Report an issue: GitHub.