/ 
Validate-CodiceFiscale-0.004
River stage zero No dependents
/ Validate::CodiceFiscale

NAME

Validate::CodiceFiscale - Validate an Italian "Codice Fiscale"

VERSION

This document describes Validate::CodiceFiscale version 0.004.

Build Status Perl Version Current CPAN version Kwalitee CPAN Testers CPAN Testers Matrix

SYNOPSIS

One-liner:

$ perl -MValidate::CodiceFiscale=r -er RSSMRA98S03B833G

Module usage:

use Validate::CodiceFiscale qw< assert_valid_cf is_valid_cf validate_cf >;

my $valid   = 'RSSMRA98S03B833G';
my $invalid = 'RSICRL99C51C967X';

# the first does not warn, the second does warn
eval { assert_valid_cf($valid);   1 } or warn "died: $@";
eval { assert_valid_cf($invalid); 1 } or warn "died: $@";

# plain boolean test, any error short-circuits
if (is_valid_cf($cf)) { ... }

# get everything that's wrong
if (my $errors = validate_cf($invalid)) {
   say for $errors->@*; # array with error report, one line per error
}

# it's possible to pass additional validation options, like specific
# data. All are optional, if present they're validate, otherwise
# ignored.
assert_valid_cf($cf,
   {
      data => {
         name => 'Foo',
         surname => 'Bar',
         sex => 'f',
         date => '1998-03-11',
         place => 'B833',
      }
   }
);

# the assertion short-circuits by default, failing at the first
# error. It's possible to check everyting and get a longer error
# message, in case.
assert_valid_cf($cf, { all_errors => 1 });

# it's also possible to wrap the error generation, by returning the
# exception to throw
assert_valid_cf($cf,
   {
      all_errors => 1,
      on_error => sub {
         my @errors = @_;
         return "number of errors: $n_errors\n";
      }
   }
);

# of course, it's possible to throw the exception directly
use Ouch;
assert_valid_cf($cf, { on_error => sub { ouch 400, $_[0] } });

DESCRIPTION

This module performs partial validation of Italian Codice Fiscale, mainly at the syntactic level. For proper and legally acknowledged validation please refer to the official service by Agenzia delle Entrate at https://telematici.agenziaentrate.gov.it/VerificaCF/Scegli.do?parameter=verificaCf.

At the basic level, it allows spotting common errors that might come from copying/typing the Codice Fiscale, e.g. typing a 0 (zero) instead of an uppercase o letter, or similar errors with other digits/letters.

The validation can optionally take additional data regarding the name, surname, birth date, birth place, and sex to perform a more thorough validation based on the official rules. This part is subject to false validations (negative or positive) for the following reasons:

  • Places are generally validated against available data collected from ANPR and ISTAT, but they might be lacking. Additionally, there is no attempt at matching similar names, or names that are valid but e.g. expressed in their original language.

  • The algorithm to generate the CodiceFiscale might lead to the same string for different people. This is accounted for by using a substitution of digits with letters, but only Agenzia delle Entrate can tell whether the specific person holds the specific variant of the code.

In the end, it provides a reaasonable way of spotting negatives, but it might validate codes that would otherwise be considered invalid by the reference authority because there is nobody tied to the otherwise synctactically valid code.

INTERFACE

There are four main functions for doing checks, each targeting a different style of use, plus an additional function that can be helpful for one-liners.

assert_valid_cf

assert_valid_cf($cf, %options);

Check validity of the provided $cf and throw an exception if the check fails.

By default, the exception is thrown:

  • using Carp's croak with a message containing a string joining all errors

  • as soon as one of the validation checks fails.

Supported options:

all_errors

collect all errors to be fed into the exception, not only the first one.

data

pass additional data for validation, as a hash reference optionally containing keys name, surname, date, sex, and place.

on_error

wrap the exception generation with a sub reference used as a callback with the following signature:

sub (@error_strings) { ... }

The sub can throw the exception itself; otherwise, its return value will be used as the argument for die.

decode_cf

my $decoded = decode_cf($cf, %options);

Perform a full validation and provides back a data structure with the parsed data and the outcome of all available tests. This is the most complete form of validation that can be performed by this module.

Supported options:

data

pass additional data for validation, as a hash reference optionally containing keys name, surname, date, sex, and place.

years_baseline

the baseline year for disambiguating two-digits. As an example, people born in 1920 and people born in 2020 both have 20 as the year part in their respective codes, so this allows setting the right expectation. In lack of this parameter, whatever came last is selected (in the example above, 20 would be interpreted as 2020).

The output data structure contains the following keys:

errors

pointing to an array reference with a list of validation errors (if any);

portions

pointing to a hash reference with the disassemble of the input data, if possible (it is always possible as long as the input length is 16 characters).

date

as YYYY-MM-DD)

place

as string of characters

sex

as a single-letter character, either F or M

year
month
day

as integers.

The decoded data can be useful to perform further validations, e.g. for validating the place name in cases that are not covered by this module (e.g. when expressed in a language different from Italian, etc.).

is_valid_cf

my $boolean = is_valid_cf($cf, %options);

Check the validity; it short-circuits at the first error. Returns a boolean value.

It's possible to pass an additional key/value pair with key data and a hash reference optionally containing keys name, surname, date, sex, and place.

r

$ perl -MValidate::CodiceFiscale=r -er RSSMRA98S03B833G

The r function can be useful in one-liners to check one or more codes from the command line. By default, the r function will read input codes from @ARGV.

validate_cf

my $errors = validate_cf($cf, %options);

Check the validity and return undef if no errors were encountered, or a reference to an array containing the list of errors otherwise.

Supported options:

all_errors

collect all errors to be fed into the exception, not only the first one. This option defaults to a true value, to collect all errors; it's possible to pass a false value to short-circuit and exit at the first error.

data

pass additional data for validation, as a hash reference optionally containing keys name, surname, date, sex, and place.

years_baseline

the baseline year for disambiguating two-digits. As an example, people born in 1920 and people born in 2020 both have 20 as the year part in their respective codes, so this allows setting the right expectation. In lack of this parameter, whatever came last is selected (in the example above, 20 would be interpreted as 2020).

SEE ALSO

String::CodiceFiscale is an alternative and precedent module to deal with Codice Fiscale. I'm a bit scared about using a class method error to collect validation errors, hence this module.

BUGS AND LIMITATIONS

Minimum perl version 5.24.

Report bugs through GitHub (patches welcome) at https://github.com/polettix/Validate-CodiceFiscale.

AUTHOR

Flavio Poletti <flavio@polettix.it>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

This distribution is mainly composed of code, but it also includes data (in the __DATA__ section of the module) that is derived from publicly available data sources.

Code

Copyright 2023 by Flavio Poletti <flavio@polettix.it>

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.

Data

The data contained in the __DATA__ section of the main module is assembled from the following sources: