SYNOPSIS

use Business::BR::Biz; # does nothing, it is here because of POD and $VERSION

DESCRIPTION

This module was a placeholder for the overview of the 'biz-br' distribution, now called 'Business-BR-Ids'. Soon we will get rid of it, by moving the introductory documentation contained here to Business::BR::Ids.

EXPORT

None by default.

TESTING CORRECTNESS

Among the functionalities to be made available in this distribution, we'll have tests for correctness of typical identification numbers and codes.

To be correct will mean here to satisfy certain easily computed rules. For example, a CPF number is correct if it is 11-digits-long and satisfy two check equations which validate the check digits.

The modules "Business::BR::*" will provide subroutines "test_*" for testing the correctness of such concepts.

To be correct does not mean that an identification number or code had been verified to stand for some real entry, like an actual Brazilian taxpayer citizen in the case of CPF. This would require access to government databases which may or may not be available in a public basis. And besides, to verify something will not be easily computed in general, implying access to databases and applying specialized rules.

Here we'll be trying to stick to a consistent terminology and 'correct' will always be used for validity against syntactical forms and shallow semantics. In turn, 'verified' will be used for telling if an entity really makes sense in the real world. This convention is purely arbitrary and for the sake of being formal in some way. Terms like 'test', 'verify', 'check', 'validate', 'correct', 'valid' are often used interchangeably in colloquial prose.

EXAMPLES

As a rule, the documentation and tests choose correct identification codes which are verified to be invalid by the time of the distribution update. That is, in Business::BR::CPF, the mentioned correct CPF number '390.533.447-05' is correct, but doesn't actually exist in government databases.

AUTHOR

A. R. Ferreira, <[email protected]>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

Copyright (C) 2005 by A. R. Ferreira

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself, either Perl version 5.8.6 or, at your option, any later version of Perl 5 you may have available.