DATEVALUE in WPS Spreadsheet: Convert Date Text with Explicit Locale and Year

• Introduced: documented by 2019-05-27 in the official WPS lesson; original introduction is not established.
• Availability: WPS Office for Windows Personal; the lesson metadata gives no numeric release.
• Scope: exact current supported builds remain unverified; the historical Windows lesson does not establish all WPS clients.
• Checked: October 14, 2026 against complete function-specific documentation. Examples are independent expectations; no native WPS test was performed.

=DATEVALUE(date_text)

The argument is date text, supplied in quotes or through a text-containing cell. The historical lesson says a missing year uses the computer clock’s current year and time information is ignored. These rules matter for reproducibility: the same incomplete string may refer to a different year later.

Examples use comma separators in helper formulas and English names. They are independent documented-model controls, not native WPS results. Use a workbook locale that recognizes the shown year/month/day strings, and verify a simple control before importing a column.

=DATEVALUE("1990/1/1")
=DATEVALUE("2022/1/1")

The WPS walkthrough explicitly gives 32874 and 44562 for these two inputs. They are source-documented serial controls, not a universal imported-workbook date-system promise.

=DATEVALUE("2022/1/1")-DATEVALUE("1990/1/1")

Expected difference: 11688 days, independently confirmed by Gregorian calendar arithmetic. Format the difference as a number. Format either parsed date as a date if you want a readable calendar label instead of its serial.

Create text explicitly in A2:A4 using these formulas:

Enter =DATEVALUE(A2) in B2 and fill down. Set B2:B4 to a date display format. Under a locale recognizing these strings, the differences B3−B2 and B4−B2 are 14 and 31 days.

Retain column A during import checks. A readable output alone can hide a month/day interpretation error, especially with strings such as 4/5/2026. A number format is presentation; it is not proof of the parsing rule used.

For the three parsed dates above, fill these separate checks down:

=YEAR(B2)
=MONTH(B2)
=DAY(B2)

Expected year components are 2026, 2026, 2026; months 10, 10, 11; days 1, 15, 1. Keep these component outputs numeric. The check makes a plausible-looking but incorrect interpretation easier to detect.

If your source already supplies separate numeric fields, DATE is usually the clearer construction. DATEVALUE does not need to be applied to every existing numeric date, and numeric-argument coercion is not certified by this guide.

A string such as 10/15 has no fixed year under the documented clock-dependent rule. Use a full year in repeatable exercises and data interchange. DATEVALUE also ignores recognized time information, so it is unsuitable when preserving a timestamp’s time of day is required; compare TIMEVALUE for the separate time component.

The source contains conflicting earliest-date wording: its formal definition starts at 31 Dec 1899, while the walkthrough starts at 1 Jan 1900. Its repeated serial-origin explanation is also inconsistent. Those earliest boundaries and the exact absolute base remain held here. The modern serial examples are quoted as specific source controls only.

The lesson names #VALUE! for out-of-range or unrecognized date text, but this guide does not certify every locale, malformed string or imported date system. Preserve the original text when investigating an error instead of silently replacing failed dates with zero.

• WPS Academy: DATEVALUE, 2019-05-27 (Chinese; Windows Personal).
• WPS Academy: YEAR.
• WPS Academy: MONTH.
• WPS Academy: DAY.
• Editorial testing standards.

The complete function definition and walkthrough were reviewed. Worked outputs are independent calendar and time models; source ambiguities and native boundaries remain explicit.