A generic business document validation engine originally developed for Peppol but now also supporting many other document types.

"phive" is an abbreviation of "Philip Helger Integrative Validation Engine" and is pronounced exactly like the digit 5: [ˈfaɪv].

This project only contains the validation engine - all the preconfigured rules are available in a separate repository at https://github.com/phax/phive-rules

This project is part of my Peppol solution stack. See https://github.com/phax/peppol for other components and libraries in that area.

This project is licensed under the Apache 2 license.

A live version of this engine can be found on Peppol Practical and at ecosio.

This project has the following sub-modules:

• phive-api - a generic API that is independent of the effective validation logic. It contains the interfaces for validation sources, validation artefacts, validation execution and validation results.
• phive-ves-model - contains the XML representation of a VES, a Validation Execution Set.
• phive-xml (previously phive-engine) - contains the support for validating XML source document via XML Schema and Schematron
• phive-ves-engine - the validation engine that takes the data structures from phive-ves-model, loads external resources via ph-diver and validates business documents via phive-xml.
• phive-result (previously phive-json) - library to support converting validation results to different output formats (e.g. JSON)

Note: this library does NOT include an EDIFACT validation. It's a placeholder for local implementations.

Basically this library wraps different XML Schemas and Schematrons in a certain order and under certain constraints and offers the possibility to validate XML documents based on the rules.

The underlying model is the so called "Validation Pyramid":

Each layer of the Validation Pyramid reflects a single set of rules. Each rule set is identified by a VESID, and the resulting pyramid is also identified by a single ID.

Every set of validation artefacts is uniquely identified with a VESID which is a DVR Coordinate. E.g. the "Peppol BIS Billing UBL Invoice release May 2023" is identified with the group ID eu.peppol.bis3, the artefact ID is invoice and the version number is 2023.5 (representing "May 2023") (without a classifier). Another example is "SimplerInvoicing 1.2 invoice" which has the group ID org.simplerinvoicing, the artifact ID invoice and the version number 1.2 (also without a classifier).

Additional to the pseudo versions defined by ph-diver this library adds the following additional pseudo versions:

• latest-active - always refer to the latest version of an artefact which is currently valid. This includes snapshot and non-snapshot versions.
• latest-release-active - always refer to the latest version of an artefact which is currently valid. This includes snapshot and non-snapshot versions.

Note: These pseudo versions are defined in class PhivePseudoVersionRegistrarSPIImpl.

At least the phive-xml project and one library with rule sets (like e.g. phive-rules-peppol from https://github.com/phax/phive-rules) is needed in your application. See the section on usage in a Maven project below. All available VES must be registered in an instance of class ValidationExecutorSetRegistry (which can simply created via new). Depending on the used domain specific libraries, initialization calls for registration into the registry must be performed. Example for registering (only) Peppol validation artefacts:

final ValidationExecutorSetRegistry <IValidationSourceXML> aVESRegistry = new ValidationExecutorSetRegistry<> ();
PeppolValidation.initStandard (aVESRegistry);

The instance of class ValidationExecutorSetRegistry can be kept as a (static) singleton - it is thread-safe. Therefore the registration process need to be performed only once.

Validating a business document requires a few more steps.

1. Access to the registry is needed.
2. A specific VESID instance (e.g. PeppolValidation2024_05.VID_OPENPEPPOL_INVOICE_UBL_V3 - from phive-rules) - there are constants available for all VES identifiers defined in this project.
3. The ValidationExecutionManager is an in-between class that can be used to customize the execution. But it is created very quickly, so there is no harm on creating it on the fly every time.
4. An instance of class ValidationSourceXML to identify the document to be validate. Class ValidationSourceXML has factory methods for the default cases (having an org.w3c.dom.Node or having an com.helger.commons.io.resource.IReadableResource).
5. The validation results are stored in an instance of class ValidationResultList. This class is a list of ValidationResult instances - each ValidationResult represents the result of a single level of validation.
6. Your application logic than needs to define what to do with the results.

A basic example can be found in the tests at https://github.com/phax/phive/blob/master/phive-xml/src/test/java/com/helger/phive/api/execute/ValidationExecutionManagerFuncTest.java

TODO The description of this section needs to be written. Please have patience until everything is ready and setup.

Add the following to your pom.xml to use this artifact, replacing x.y.z with the latest version:

<dependency>
  <groupId>com.helger.phive</groupId>
  <artifactId>phive-xml</artifactId>
  <version>x.y.z</version>
</dependency>

If you are interested in the validation result transformation you need to also include this artefact.

<dependency>
  <groupId>com.helger.phive</groupId>
  <artifactId>phive-result</artifactId>
  <version>x.y.z</version>
</dependency>

Alternate usage as a Maven BOM:

<dependency>
  <groupId>com.helger.phive</groupId>
  <artifactId>phive-parent-pom</artifactId>
  <version>x.y.z</version>
  <type>pom</type>
  <scope>import</scope>
</dependency>

Please ensure that your stack size is at least 1MB (for Saxon). Using the Oracle runtime, this can be achieved by passing -Xss1m on the command line. This only seems to be a problem when running 32bit Java. With 64bit Java, the default stack size of the Oracle JVM is already 1MB.

v11.0.1 - 2025-09-04

• Updated the XSLT based Schematron validation as suggested in ph-schematron#192 - thx @Lukvargen

v11.0.0 - 2025-08-25

• Requires Java 17 as the minimum version
• Updated to ph-commons 12.0.0
• Removed all code marked as deprecated for removal

v10.1.1 - 2025-03-03

• Added new classes IGenericPseudoVersionResolver and DefaultGenericPseudoVersionResolver
• Fixed invalid return codes for ValidationResultList.containsNo(Failure|Error) for empty lists

v10.1.0 - 2024-12-05

• Requires ph-commons 11.1.11
• Added new interface IValidationExecutorSetMutable
• Added new class ValidationExecutorSetAlias to be able to proxy existing VES with different coordinates
• Added new class ValidityDeterminatorRegistry to support validity determination processes
• Added optional IValidationSource to ValidationResultList
• Changed parameter types in PhiveJsonHelper and PhiveXMLHelper from List <? extends ValidationResult> to ValidationResultList
• Added new class ValidationSourceXMLReadableResource
• Extended IValidationSource interface to make content serializable
• Added the duration in milliseconds per ValidationResult
• Updated the default JSON and XML validation result list serialization to contain the new elements

v10.0.3 - 2024-12-01

• Added default XML serialization of validation results
• Added new EValidationBaseType entries

v10.0.2 - 2024-09-16

• Re-release due to Maven Central issue

v10.0.1 - 2024-09-16

• Fixed the validation types in ValidationExecutorXSDPartial.create

v10.0.0 - 2024-09-16

• Updated to ph-diver 3.0.1
• The outcome of a validation can now be valid, invalid or unclear (new)
  • Added new classes EExtendedValidity and IValidityDeterminator
  • Each IValidationExecutorManager now has an IValidityDeterminator
  • By using IValidityDeterminator.getDefault() the previous state can be re-created
• Renamed method IValidationArtefact.getValidationArtefactType to getValidationType
• Moved classes (Abstract|I)ValidationExecutor to its own .executor package
• Renamed class TestFile to PhiveTestFile

v9.2.2 - 2024-07-29

• Switched from custom error level to CustomErrorDetails

v9.2.1 - 2024-04-25

• Updated to ph-diver 1.2.0
• Added support for the pseudo version resolution in VESLoader.loadVESFromRepo
• The VESLoader now requires a IRepoStorageWithToc instead of a IRepoStorageBase in the constructor
• Added support for new pseudo versions latest-active and latest-release-active

v9.2.0 - 2024-03-29

• Updated to ph-commons 11.1.5
• Ensured Java 21 compatibility
• Extended the VES status XSD with new optional elements
• Introducing [I]ValidationExecutorSetStatus representing the status of a single Validation Executor Set

v9.1.0 - 2024-03-09

• Updated to ph-schematron 8.0.0 using Saxon 12.x
• Updated to ph-diver 1.1.0
• Improved dynamic VES loading heavily

v9.0.0 - 2023-09-14

• Moved class PhiveRestoredException into a separate package
• Using the class VESID etc. from ph-diver-api instead
• Replaced the phive-repo with ph-diver-repo instead
• Moved classes [I]ValidationSourceBinary from phive-xml to phive-api
• Renamed class MockFile to TestFile

v9.0.0-beta2 - 2023-09-06 [don't use in production]

• Reworked the version handling inside class VESID so that a strict ordering by version is possible
• Added specific support for the SNAPSHOT version, so that 1.0.0-SNAPSHOT is lower then 1.0.0

v9.0.0-beta1 - 2023-08-30 [don't use in production]

• Removed VOM* in favour of VES*
• Added new submodule "phive-repo" to be able to retrieve artefacts from remote storage locations
• Added new submodule "phive-ves-model" that contain the VES data structures
• Added new submodule "phive-ves-engine" that contain the VES execution engine
• Renamed the submodule "phive-engine" to "phive-xml" to indicate, that this is the part dealing with XML validation only. This also lead to new package names.
• Renamed the submodule "phive-json" to "phive-result" to indicate, that this is deals with validation results in general. The JSON stuff got its own package in there.
• Initial version for declaration VES rules for XSD and Schematron

v8.0.1 - 2023-03-17

• Added support for resolving the pseudo version latest in ValidationExecutorSetRegistry. See issue #16 - thx @adammscisz

v8.0.0 - 2023-02-19

• Using Java 11 as the baseline
• Updated to ph-commons 11
• Updated to JAXB 4.0

v7.2.4 - 2022-08-17

• Updated to ph-commons 10.1.7
• Added support for the error date time serialization to JSON and back

v7.2.3 - 2022-02-24

• Increased the flexibility of the Json output providers

v7.2.2 - 2021-11-05

• Stopping further validations, if an error occurs on XSD level

v7.2.1 - 2021-06-09

• Started introduction of the new VOM - Validation Object Model - an XML based approach for validation configuration

v7.2.0 - 2021-03-22

• Updated to ph-commons 10
• Added new class ValidationSourceBinary

v7.1.1 - 2021-01-28

• Extended the internal API to ensure validation artifacts are in cache

v7.1.0 - 2021-01-26

• Extracted the interface IValidationType from EValidationType and using it where applicable

v7.0.1 - 2020-12-04

• Updated to ph-schematron 6.0.1
• The failed assertion ID is now part of the created errors (if present)
• Add the possibility to change the error levels of occurred Schematron errors

v7.0.0 - 2020-11-25

• The Maven group ID changed from com.helger.bdve to com.helger.phive
• The Java package names changed from com.helger.bdve.* to com.helger.phive.*
• The class name BDVEJsonHelper changed to PhiveJsonHelper
• The class name BDVERestoredException changed to PhiveRestoredException
• Updated to ph-schematron 6.0.0
• Added support for using "SchXslt" as a Schematron engine

v6.0.4 - 2020-11-11

• Added new overloads for ValidationExecutorXSD.create
• Added IValidationArtefact.getRuleResourcePath () to customize the file path
• Added ValidationExecutorXSDPartial.create factory methods
• Added XSDPartialContext.create factory methods
• Added ValidationExecutorSchematron.create factory methods

v6.0.3 - 2020-09-17

• Updated to Jakarta JAXB 2.3.3

v6.0.2 - 2020-06-16

• Fixed a typo in the JSON property errorLocationObj

v6.0.1 - 2020-06-16

• Extended ValidationExecutorSetRegistry API to allow for unregistration

v6.0.0 - 2020-06-08

• Separated all the rules into a separate project - https://github.com/phax/ph-bdve-rules - this repository only contains the engine
• Extracted the JSON binding into a separate submodule "ph-bdve-json"
• Extracted the generic API project into a separate submodule "ph-bdve-api"
• Made the validation source type a generics parameter to the executor set etc. So an executor needs to know, whether it can accept XML sources or other kind of source syntaxes.
• Extracted IValidationSourceXML from IValidationSource
• Renamed ValidationSource from ValidationSourceXML

v5.3.1 - 2020-05-28

• Added possibility to stop further validation on failed Schematrons as well

v5.3.0 - 2020-05-26

• Changed the Maven groupId to com.helger.bdve
• Renamed the submodule ph-bdve to ph-bdve-engine
• Updated to ph-commons 9.4.4
• Removed the class loader member from IValidationArtifact
• Deprecated Peppol 3.9.0 and 3.9.1 artefacts - 3.10.0 is the right one
• Added support for EN 16931 1.3.2 format (deprecated version 1.3.1)

v5.2.11 - 2020-05-01

• Updated to ph-commons 9.4.0
• Added support for ebInterface 6.0
• Added support for OpenPeppol validation artifacts, Spring 2020 release

v5.2.10 - 2020-03-20

• The Peppol AU-NZ rules were updated to v1.0.2. v1.0.1 is now deprecated.

v5.2.9 - 2020-03-18

• Fixed usage of wrong Peppol AU-NZ Schematrons for v1.0.1. See issue #12

v5.2.8 - 2020-03-12

• Added support for UBL.BE 1.2 (version 2020-03)
• Deprecated OpenPeppol 3.7.0 rules (for BIS v2)

v5.2.7 - 2020-03-08

• Deprecated eu.cen.en16931:edifact:1.0.0 as it is not maintained anymore
• Extended validation API
• Added support for EN 16931 1.3.1 format (deprecated version 1.3.0)

v5.2.6 - 2020-02-10

• Updated the UBL 2.3 identifiers from "csprd01" to "csprd02"
• Added Peppol BIS 3 billing Hotfix from 2020-02-10 (BR-S-08 for standard VAT, BR-IG-08 for Canary Islands tax, BR-IP-08 for Ceuta and Melilla tax) as Peppol rules 3.9.1
• Updated to the EHF G2 rules from 2019-12

v5.2.5 - 2020-02-06

• Added a default JSON representation for validation results - see class BDVEJsonHelper
• Added support for UBL.BE 1.1 (version 2019-11)
• Deprecated UBL.BE 1.0, e-FFF Invoice and e-FFF Credit Note validations
• Updated to UBL 2.3 CSPRD 02 (without changing the ID :( )

v5.2.4 - 2020-01-13

• Added support for XRechnung 1.2.2 format (deprecated version 1.2.1)

v5.2.3 - 2019-12-18

• Added Singapore (SG) Peppol Billing BIS3 rules version 1.0.2

v5.2.2 - 2019-12-12

• Added SimplerInvoicing 2.0.2 and deprecated version 2.0.1

v5.2.1 - 2019-12-09

• Added SimplerInvoicing 2.0.1 and deprecated version 2.0

v5.2.0 - 2019-11-29

• The Peppol AU-NZ rules were updated. The old version is now the official "1.0.0" whereas the new rules are "1.0.1". Confusing, I know :-|
• Updated to ph-schematron 5.4.0 (incompatible change)

v5.1.15 - 2019-11-15

• Added support for UBL 2.3 CSPRD01
• Updated Peppol-SG rules to the latest version
• Deprecated OpenPeppol 3.8.1 rules

v5.1.14 - 2019-11-01

• Added support for A-NZ Peppol 1.0.1 validations
• Added OpenPEPPOL 3.9.0 (Fall release 2019) artefacts

v5.1.13 - 2019-10-14

• Added support for EN 16931 1.3.0 format (deprecated version 1.2.3)
• Updated Singapore (SG) Peppol Billing BIS3 rules to version 2019-06-12

v5.1.12 - 2019-09-09

• Deprecated OpenPEPPOL 3.8.0 artefacts
• XRechnung 1.2.1 is now based on EN16931 1.2.1 release

v5.1.11 - 2019-07-21

• Added OpenPEPPOL 3.8.1 (Spring release 2019 bug fix release) artefacts
• Updated SimplerInvoicing artefacts to the latest versions. This lead to "SI 1.1 strict" to be removed.

v5.1.10 - 2019-07-10

• Added new EHF validation artefacts (incl. Invoice and Credit Note 2.0.16)
• Deprecated eu.peppol.bis3.ubl:invoice:1 in favour of eu.peppol.bis3:invoice:3.8.0
• Deprecated eu.peppol.bis3.ubl:creditnote:1 in favour of eu.peppol.bis3:creditnote:3.8.0
• Added support for XRechnung 1.2.1 format (deprecated version 1.2.0)
• Added support for EN 16931 1.2.3 format (deprecated version 1.2.1)

v5.1.9 - 2019-06-10

• Fixed an error in EHF-UBL-COMMON.sch of November 2018 release
• Fixed an error in EHF-UBL-T19.sch of November 2018 release
• Added support for XRechnung 1.2.0 format

v5.1.8 - 2019-05-15

• Added Peppol 3.8.0 (Spring 2019 release) validation artefacts (BIS v3 only)

v5.1.7 - 2019-05-14

• Added EN 16931 validation artefacts version 1.2.1, deprecated the old 1.2.0 version
• Internally restructured EHF layout for future extension

v5.1.6 - 2019-04-26

• Added EN 16931 validation artefacts version 1.2.0, deprecated the old 1.1.0 version

v5.1.5 - 2019-04-19

• Updated OIOUBL validation rules to the latest version
• Updated SimplerInvoicing 2.0 RC1 to 2.0 final release
• Added support for Dutch Energie eFactuur 3.0.0 (based on SimplerInvoicing 2.0)

v5.1.4 - 2019-03-21

• EHF validation without "OPENPEPPOL CORE" rules
• Fixed an error in the created XSLTs for ATNAT/ATGOV T10 and T14 because of variable order as well as a spelling error

v5.1.3 - 2019-03-08

• Updated to latest EHF releases (Invoice and Credit Note 2.0.15 etc.)
• EHF validation now directly depends on the Peppol Validation artefacts

v5.1.2 - 2019-02-04

• Added SimplerInvoicing 2.0 RC1 support #3
• Added Singapore (SG) Peppol Billing BIS3 support #4

v5.1.1 - 2019-01-16

• Added UBL.BE 1.0.0 Schematrons

v5.1.0 - 2018-11-23

• Requires ph-commons 9.2.0
• Added support for OpenPEPPOL 3.7.0 (Fall 2018) rules (incl. Billing BIS3)
• Removed support for OpenPEPPOL 3.4.0 rules

v5.0.6 - 2018-11-09

• Fixed an error in the UBL.BE document types. In reality those are e-FFF 3.0 document types. VESID changed therefore.

v5.0.5 - 2018-11-07

• Requires at least ph-commons 9.1.8
• Added support for UBL.BE document types
• Added support for OpenPEPPOL 3.7.0.RC1 (Fall 2018) rules (incl. Billing BIS3)

v5.0.4 - 2018-08-14

• Added support for UBL 2.0 XSD validation
• Added support for UBL 2.2 XSD validation

v5.0.3 - 2018-07-11

• Updated EHF rules to 2018-02-20

v5.0.2 - 2018-06-26

• Added EN 16931 validation artefacts version 1.1.0, deprecated the old 1.0.0 version

v5.0.1 - 2018-06-15

• Fixed marking of OpenPEPPOL 3.5.0 artefatcs as "deprecated"
• Added support for Peppol Billing BIS 3 document types
• Added support for EN 16931 UBL CreditNote validation

v5.0.0 - 2018-06-01

• Added Tieto TEAPPSXML support
• Added Austrian ebInterface support
• Simplified internal API backwards incompatible (removed all the bloat overhead where possible)

v4.0.5 - 2018-05-14

• Support for OpenPEPPOL rules 3.3.0 was removed - too old
• Updated to OpenPEPPOL 3.6.0 (Spring 2018) rules

v4.0.4 - 2018-02-22

• Updated to EN 16931 rules 1.0.0
• Added support for Dutch Energie eFactuur 1.0.0 (based on SimplerInvoicing 1.1)
• Added support for Dutch Energie eFactuur 1.0.1 (based on SimplerInvoicing 1.1)

v4.0.3 - 2018-02-07

• Added OIOUBL 2.0.2 support (new artefact ph-bdve-oioubl)
• EN 16031 rules were updated

v4.0.2 - 2018-02-03

• Added support for Dutch Energie eFactuur 2.0.0 (new artefact ph-bdve-energieefactuur) - based on SimplerInvoicing 1.2
• Updated to ph-commons 9.0.1 (Locale specific XSD error messages)
• Schematron error messages are more easily readable
• EN 16031 rules were updated
• CII validation was heavily improved

v4.0.1 - 2018-01-23

• Added support for EHF document formats (new artefact ph-bdve-ehf) - based on https://vefa.difi.no/ehf/standard/
• Added support to validate UBL documents only (without Schematron) (new artefact ph-bdve-ubl)
• Added support to validate CII documents only (without Schematron) (new artefact ph-bdve-cii)
• Extended API to support better cleanup

v4.0.0 - 2018-01-15

• Updated to ph-commons 9.0.0
• Updated to the latest official EN-16931 rules
• Updated to the Peppol Autumn 2017 release (3.5.0)

v3.2.0 - 2017-07-27

• Improved ClassLoader handling, so that each validation artefact has a defined class loader.

v3.1.4 - 2017-07-12

• Fixed an error where warnings in Schematron validation lead to not evaluating the SVRL

v3.1.3 - 2017-06-07

• Re-release because v3.1.2 had issues with Maven Central deployment

v3.1.2 - 2017-06-06

• Fixed a problem with XSLT based validation when using anything different from a DOM Document as the validation source

v3.1.1 - 2017-06-01

• Re-added SimplerInvoicing 1.1 rules
• Enabled Schematron caching by default
• Improved caching API

v3.1.0 - 2017-05-15

• Added EN 16931 rules
• Update to OpenPEPPOL 3.4.0 rules
• Update to SimplerInvoicing 1.2 rules
• Updated to ph-schematron 4.3.0

v3.0.0 - 2017-01-26

• Is a complete rewrite with different structure etc.
• Binds to ph-commons 8.6.x
• Requires at least ph-schematron 4.2.1

v2.0.1 - 2016-09-12

• Binds to ph-commons 8.5.x

v2.0.0 - 2016-08-22

• Requires JDK 8

My personal Coding Styleguide | It is appreciated if you star the GitHub project if you like it.