validator/README.md
Renzo Kottmann 93a64223b8 minor grammar in README.md
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Co-authored-by: Renzo Kottmann <renzo.kottmann@finanzen.bremen.de>
2025-09-04 12:07:23 +02:00

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# KoSIT Validator
[![Maven Central](https://img.shields.io/maven-central/v/org.kosit/validator)](https://central.sonatype.com/artifact/org.kosit/validator)
[![Apache 2.0 license](https://img.shields.io/badge/license-Apache%202-blue)](https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0)
## Introduction
The Validator is an XML validation engine to validate and process XML files in various formats. It basically does the following in order:
1. identify actual XML format
1. validate the XML file (using schema and schematron rules)
1. generate a custom report / extract custom data from the XML file
1. compute an acceptance status (according the supplied schema and rules)
The Validator depends on self defined [scenarios](docs/configurations.md) in order to fully configure the whole process.
It always creates a [validation report in XML](docs/configurations.md#validators-report). The actual content of the report can also be controlled by the scenario.
See [architecture](docs/architecture.md) for information about the whole validation process.
## Validation configurations
The Validator is just an engine and does not know anything about XML documents and has no own validation rules.
Validation rules and details are defined in [validation scenarios](docs/configurations.md) which are used to fully configure the validation process.
All configurations are self-contained modules which are deployed and developed on their own.
### Third party validation configurations
Here are two public third party validation configurations available which might serve as examples:
* Validation Configuration for [XRechnung](http://www.xoev.de/de/xrechnung):
* Source code is available on [GitHub](https://github.com/itplr-kosit/validator-configuration-xrechnung)
* [Releases](https://github.com/itplr-kosit/validator-configuration-xrechnung/releases) can also be downloaded
* Validation Configuration for [XGewerbeanzeige](https://xgewerbeanzeige.de/)
* Source code is available on [GitHub](https://github.com/itplr-kosit/validator-configuration-xgewerbeanzeige)
* [Releases](https://github.com/itplr-kosit/validator-configuration-xgewerbeanzeige/releases) can also be downloaded
## Usage
The Validator can be used in three different ways:
* as standalone application running from the CLI
* as library embedded within a custom application
* as a daemon providing a http interface
### Standalone Command Line Interface (CLI)
**Important hint**: since v1.5.1 the filename has been changed from `validationtool-*` to `validator-*`
The general way using the CLI is:
```shell
java -jar validator-<version>-standalone.jar -s <scenario-config-file> -r <repository-path>
[OPTIONS] [FILE] [FILE] [FILE] ...
```
The help option displays further CLI options to customize the process:
```shell
java -jar validator-<version>-standalone.jar --help
```
A concrete example with a specific validator configuration can be found on
[GitHub](https://github.com/itplr-kosit/validator-configuration-xrechnung)
The [CLI documentation](./docs/cli.md) shows further configuration options.
### Application User Interface (API / embedded usage)
The Validator can also be used in own Java Applications via the API. An example use of the API as follows:
```java
Path scenarios = Paths.get("scenarios.xml");
Configuration config = Configuration.load(scenarios.toUri());
Input document = InputFactory.read(testDocument);
Check validator = new DefaultCheck(config);
Result validationResult = validator.checkInput(document);
// examine the result here
```
The [API documentation](./docs/api.md) shows further configuration options.
**Note:** With Java 11+, you need to include a dependency to `org.glassfish.jaxb:jaxb-runtime` in your project explicitly,
as that dependency is marked `optional` in this project and will thus not be resolved transitively.
### Daemon-Mode
You can also start the validator as a HTTP-Server. Just start it in _Daemon-Mode_ with the `-D` option.
```shell
java -jar validator-<version>-standalone.jar -s <scenario-config-file> -D
```
The [daemon documentation](./docs/daemon.md) shows more usage details and further configuration options.
## Packages
The Validator distribution contains the following artifacts:
1. **validator-`<version>`.jar**: Java library for embedded use within an application
1. **validator-`<version>`-standalone.jar**: Uber-JAR for standalone usage containing all dependencies in one jar file. This file comes with JAXB *embedded* and can be used with Java 8 and Java >= 11)
1. **validator-`<version>`-java8-standalone.jar**: Uber-JAR for standalone usage with Java JDK 8 containing all dependencies in one jar file. This file file *does not* contain JAXB and depends on the bundled version of the JDK.
1. **libs/***: directory containing all (incl. optional) dependencies of the validator
## Installation
Download from the following sources is possible:
* GitHub releases: https://github.com/itplr-kosit/validator/releases
* This release contains a ZIP file with all the different JAR variants
* Maven Central with the below coordinates (replace `x.y.z` with the actual version to use)
```xml
<dependency>
<groupId>org.kosit</groupId>
<artifactId>validator</artifactId>
<version>x.y.z</version>
</dependency>
```
To use the standalone version with Maven coordinates, add the respective classifier:
```xml
<dependency>
<groupId>org.kosit</groupId>
<artifactId>validator</artifactId>
<version>x.y.z</version>
<classifier>standalone</classifier>
</dependency>
```
## Roadmap
This section describes the next steps planned in the Validator development.
* Release version 1.6.0 based on Java 11 and using Jakarta 4.x. - Autumn 2025
* Drop support of version 1.5.x when version 1.6 is released
* Develop version 2.0.0 which will include major API incompatibilities - Winter 2025
* Rework scenarios.xml
* Rework report output engine
* Change the output type to [XVRL](https://github.com/xproc/xvrl)-based document types &rarr; this implies that existing XSL templates need to be updated
* Consider multi Schematron engine support
* Extract the daemon mode into its own submodule
* Consider extracting the CLI into its own submodule
* The release of version 2.0.0 implies a feature-freeze for version 1.6
## Authors & Acknowledgements
We are thankful to numerous third-party [contributors](https://github.com/itplr-kosit/validator/graphs/contributors).
## License
The Validator is licensed under the [Apache 2.0 license](https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0).