VAT format validation

Hi,

I'm not sure to understand this issue, normally a VAT number is composed like that:

2 letter country code + List of numbers. The spanish VAT number should be like that too...

The last condition you removed in your patch check if the "code" after the country code is only composed by letters, so, until somebody didn't prove me that there are some VAT number that can have letters in their "code" I suggest to not remove this condition.

I'm not sure that the prefix is mandatory for national invoice in every country.
Neither in italy this is mandatory, but I suppose that the VAT validation process require it.
Understanding that people normally don't use the country prefix I've written a little patch that automatically fill the vat field with the right iso code just selecting the billing country.
This is my really first patch so, if there is something wrong, please be patient.
Maybe the better choice would be to create two fields as in the Vies VAT number validation, one automatically filled with country iso and the other just for digits.

LS,

IMHO the whole validation of the VAT-number is a critical aspect of this module. It should be 'very good' or outstanding, because store owners and customers must be able to rely on it. I checked out the module and I think there is some room for improvement of it. For instance:

• The validation should not only assume the hard coded countries, but also take in aspect the place of the supplier of the goods. Because a supplier in the same country as the buyer has to charge vat on his sales.
• IMHO it is better to retrieve the country data from a build in table. (perhaps such a table should be part of the Drupal core, because a lot of modules are using that data, such as ubercart, etc). But that's an other discussion
• The country code and the vat-number should be separated fields in the form. Or the retrieval of the country code should be done in an other way. It is possible to generate the alpha-2 country code based on the address of the buyer (held against the country database). In that way the buyer only has to submit the rest of his vat-number
• The format of a vat-number can hold more than only numbers (see: http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/vies/faqvies.do#item11 for more information, specialy the remark at the bottom of this table). So verification of the user input should deal with this.
• fault handling can be better implemented. What if the SOAP service is not available or the member state database is down for some reason?

I don't only want to be a positive, critical spectator on this, but willing to actively work on this matter. So let me know when hands are needed.

Best,
VinceW

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Patch in #1 also added to the one in #645260: Is there something wrong

I've committed a patch that should now allow valid VAT numbers for all countries, including Spain and Austria.