vies 2.1.2

VIES (VAT Information Exchange System) client for Dart. Validates European VAT numbers and retrieves the business information published by the EU service.

2.1.2

Changed

• The README carries its build badge again, pointed at the branch the repository actually builds from. Here that is master, which is why it read "no status" against main.
• homepage and the Live demo badge point at packages.comapps.be, where the demo site moved. The old address redirects there.
• The badge row carries a PayPal donation badge, funding points pub.dev at the same donation page, and the README ends on the other packages COMAPPS publishes. Nothing about the library changed.

2.1.1

Changed

• homepage points at the demo, which runs the package in a browser.

2.1.0

Added

• validateVat takes the country prefix inside vatNumber. BE1003546213, BE1003.546.213, 1003546213 and 1003.546.213 are all accepted, and countryCode is now optional. A prefix read from vatNumber wins over countryCode; with no country on either side the call throws ViesClientError carrying ViesErrorCode.invalidInput.
• VatShape.split returns the country prefix and the number that follows it, or null when the value carries no prefix VIES knows.

Deprecated

• countryCode, removed in 3.0.0. Put the prefix in vatNumber instead. A French key of two letters can read as a country code, so countryCode: 'FR' with vatNumber: 'BE123456789' reaches Belgium where vatNumber: 'FRBE123456789' reaches France. Keeping the prefix and the number together removes the ambiguity.

Changed

• countryCode is no longer required. Existing calls still compile, with a deprecation warning.

2.0.1

• Lowers the Dart floor to 3.0, from 3.8. The code uses no language feature above 3.0.
• No change to the API or to the behaviour.

2.0.0

Major rewrite. Breaking changes - see migration notes below.

Added

• VatShape is now public: VatShape.isValid and VatShape.normalize give an offline shape check without a network call, and VatShape.supportedCountryCodes lists the prefixes RegexType.eu knows.
• ValidationSource on ViesValidationResponse: regex marks a result that only passed the offline shape check, vies one a member state confirmed. A regex-only answer is no longer indistinguishable from a real validation.
• serviceUrl: parameter on validateVat, so viesTestServiceUrl can actually be reached. It was exported but unusable.
• maxRetryBackoff constant, capping the exponential backoff.
• ViesErrorCode enum replacing the previous string codes; each value carries a wireName (stable identifier) and a human-readable message.
• Sealed ViesError base class, implemented by ViesClientError and ViesServerError - both now implements Exception instead of extending AssertionError.
• http.Client injection via the new client: parameter - enables connection reuse and clean mocking in tests.
• Optional retries: parameter with exponential backoff for transient VIES faults (MS_UNAVAILABLE, MS_MAX_CONCURRENT_REQ, SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE, SERVER_BUSY, TIMEOUT).
• Strongly-typed Country class; europeanCountries is now List<Country>.
• ViesValidationResponse: value-based == / hashCode, copyWith, fromJson, and a requestDateTime helper that parses the VIES date+offset format.
• ViesProvider.debugParseSoapResponse for parsing tests without HTTP.
• Recognises Greek prefix EL and Northern Ireland prefix XI in the EU regex.
• XML escaping of inputs before they are placed in the SOAP body.

Fixed

• An unreadable response body was reported as INVALID_VAT_NUMBER instead of PARSING_ERROR. An HTML error page served with a 200, or an empty body, told the caller their VAT number was invalid when it was not. The completeness check now runs before the valid flag is read.
• A VAT number typed in lower case was rejected offline: normalize stripped separators without upper-casing, while the default RegexType.world pattern requires upper case. Numbers ending in a letter, such as the Dutch B01, were the visible victims.
• RegexType.eu applied one shared {8,12} length to all 29 prefixes, which rejected registered numbers. Each member state now has its own format, so Romanian numbers (2 to 10 digits) validate.
• A malformed numeric character reference in a business name raised a raw RangeError through the documented ViesError contract. Such a reference is now left in place.
• The retry backoff had no ceiling, so a large retries produced unbounded waits. It is capped at maxRetryBackoff, and a negative retries counts as zero.
• Removed the dart:io import (used only for SocketException) which broke Flutter web compilation. Transport failures are now classified from http.ClientException and work on every platform, web included.
• Catch-all that previously swallowed ViesClientError from the parsing path and reported every failure as SERVER_DISCONNECTED.
• Typo in error code SERVER_DICONNECTED -> SERVER_DISCONNECTED (now exposed only via ViesErrorCode.serverDisconnected.wireName).
• Iceland country code corrected from IC to IS.
• Regex shape errors now raise ViesClientError (was ViesServerError).

Changed

• soapBodyTemplate and viesHeaders are no longer exported: they describe how the request is built, not what the package offers.
• timeout is documented as bounding one attempt, not a whole call with retries.
• ViesProvider is now an abstract final class with a private constructor
  • no longer instantiable.
• Internal modules split out of the provider for clarity and testability:
  • xml_codec.dart - XML escape/unescape and tag extraction.
  • vat_shape.dart - offline VAT regex validation.
  • soap_parser.dart - SOAP body -> ViesValidationResponse decoding. The provider itself now only owns the public API, the HTTP call, and the retry loop.
• Pre-compiled all regular expressions (one-time cost per process).
• Cleaner SOAP body template using {countryCode} / {vatNumber} markers.
• HTTP headers no longer include Host / Connection (handled by the transport) and use a sensible Content-Type.
• Robust namespace handling - parser tolerates any prefix on SOAP and VIES elements and arbitrary attributes on tags.
• requestDate in regex-only mode is now a proper ISO 8601 UTC timestamp.
• Empty name / address values are normalised to null.

Removed

• html_unescape dependency - replaced by an in-package XML entity decoder.
• ViesProvider.classId field (was test-only scaffolding).
• The standalone viesErrors map - error messages now live on ViesErrorCode.

Migration from 1.x

- import 'package:vies/vies.dart';
- try {
-   final res = await ViesProvider.validateVat(
-     countryCode: 'BE',
-     vatNumber: '1000341796',
-   );
- } on ViesServerError catch (e) {
-   if (e.errorCode == 'SERVER_DICONNECTED') { ... }
- }

+ import 'package:vies/vies.dart';
+ try {
+   final res = await ViesProvider.validateVat(
+     countryCode: 'BE',
+     vatNumber: '1000341796',
+   );
+ } on ViesServerError catch (e) {
+   if (e.code == ViesErrorCode.serverDisconnected) { ... }
+ } on ViesClientError catch (e) {
+   // Invalid VAT, parsing errors, INVALID_INPUT faults ...
+ }

1.1.0

• Update package to dart ">=3.0.0 <4.0.0"
• Update all dependencies to latest versions
• Improvement of the response parser
• Add regex validation
• Add more tests

1.0.2

• Adapt to new vies SOAP response format

1.0.1

• Add github public repository and issue tracker

1.0.0+1

• Increase exceptions management
• Add more managed exceptions (SocketTimeout, TimeoutException)

1.0.0

• Add accessible constant country codes list
• Add accessible constant errors list
• Code refactoring

0.0.2

• Fix https envelope error ("Envelope" element, is not a valid SOAP version)

0.0.1+1

• Update lint

0.0.1

• Initial prerelease.