European VAT Numbers

Introduction

The function clean_eu_vat() cleans a column containing European VAT number (VAT) strings, and standardizes them in a given format. The function validate_eu_vat() validates either a single VAT strings, a column of VAT strings or a DataFrame of VAT strings, returning True if the value is valid, and False otherwise.

VAT strings can be converted to the following formats via the output_format parameter:

• compact: only number strings without any seperators or whitespace, like “ATU57194903”

• standard: VAT strings with proper whitespace in the proper places. Note that in the case of VAT, the compact format is the same as the standard one.

• country: guess the country code based on the number and return a list of valid and lower case codes, like “[at]”.

Invalid parsing is handled with the errors parameter:

• coerce (default): invalid parsing will be set to NaN

• ignore: invalid parsing will return the input

• raise: invalid parsing will raise an exception

The following sections demonstrate the functionality of clean_eu_vat() and validate_eu_vat().

An example dataset containing VAT strings

import pandas as pd
import numpy as np
df = pd.DataFrame(
    {
        "vat": [
            'ATU 57194903',
            'FR 61 954 506 077',
            '7542011030',
            '7552A10004',
            '8019010008',
            "hello",
            np.nan,
            "NULL",
        ],
        "address": [
            "123 Pine Ave.",
            "main st",
            "1234 west main heights 57033",
            "apt 1 789 s maple rd manhattan",
            "robie house, 789 north main street",
            "1111 S Figueroa St, Los Angeles, CA 90015",
            "(staples center) 1111 S Figueroa St, Los Angeles",
            "hello",
        ]
    }
)
df

	vat	address
0	ATU 57194903	123 Pine Ave.
1	FR 61 954 506 077	main st
2	7542011030	1234 west main heights 57033
3	7552A10004	apt 1 789 s maple rd manhattan
4	8019010008	robie house, 789 north main street
5	hello	1111 S Figueroa St, Los Angeles, CA 90015
6	NaN	(staples center) 1111 S Figueroa St, Los Angeles
7	NULL	hello

1. Default clean_eu_vat

By default, clean_eu_vat will clean vat strings and output them in the standard format with proper separators.

from dataprep.clean import clean_eu_vat
clean_eu_vat(df, column = "vat")

	vat	address	vat_clean
0	ATU 57194903	123 Pine Ave.	ATU57194903
1	FR 61 954 506 077	main st	FR61954506077
2	7542011030	1234 west main heights 57033	NaN
3	7552A10004	apt 1 789 s maple rd manhattan	NaN
4	8019010008	robie house, 789 north main street	NaN
5	hello	1111 S Figueroa St, Los Angeles, CA 90015	NaN
6	NaN	(staples center) 1111 S Figueroa St, Los Angeles	NaN
7	NULL	hello	NaN

2. Output formats

This section demonstrates the output parameter.

standard (default)

clean_eu_vat(df, column = "vat", output_format="standard")

	vat	address	vat_clean
0	ATU 57194903	123 Pine Ave.	ATU57194903
1	FR 61 954 506 077	main st	FR61954506077
2	7542011030	1234 west main heights 57033	NaN
3	7552A10004	apt 1 789 s maple rd manhattan	NaN
4	8019010008	robie house, 789 north main street	NaN
5	hello	1111 S Figueroa St, Los Angeles, CA 90015	NaN
6	NaN	(staples center) 1111 S Figueroa St, Los Angeles	NaN
7	NULL	hello	NaN

compact

clean_eu_vat(df, column = "vat", output_format="compact")

	vat	address	vat_clean
0	ATU 57194903	123 Pine Ave.	ATU57194903
1	FR 61 954 506 077	main st	FR61954506077
2	7542011030	1234 west main heights 57033	NaN
3	7552A10004	apt 1 789 s maple rd manhattan	NaN
4	8019010008	robie house, 789 north main street	NaN
5	hello	1111 S Figueroa St, Los Angeles, CA 90015	NaN
6	NaN	(staples center) 1111 S Figueroa St, Los Angeles	NaN
7	NULL	hello	NaN

country

clean_eu_vat(df, column = "vat", output_format="country")

	vat	address	vat_clean
0	ATU 57194903	123 Pine Ave.	[at]
1	FR 61 954 506 077	main st	[fr]
2	7542011030	1234 west main heights 57033	NaN
3	7552A10004	apt 1 789 s maple rd manhattan	NaN
4	8019010008	robie house, 789 north main street	NaN
5	hello	1111 S Figueroa St, Los Angeles, CA 90015	NaN
6	NaN	(staples center) 1111 S Figueroa St, Los Angeles	NaN
7	NULL	hello	NaN

3. inplace parameter

This deletes the given column from the returned DataFrame. A new column containing cleaned VAT strings is added with a title in the format "{original title}_clean".

clean_eu_vat(df, column="vat", inplace=True)

	vat_clean	address
0	ATU57194903	123 Pine Ave.
1	FR61954506077	main st
2	NaN	1234 west main heights 57033
3	NaN	apt 1 789 s maple rd manhattan
4	NaN	robie house, 789 north main street
5	NaN	1111 S Figueroa St, Los Angeles, CA 90015
6	NaN	(staples center) 1111 S Figueroa St, Los Angeles
7	NaN	hello

4. errors parameter

coerce (default)

clean_eu_vat(df, "vat", errors="coerce")

	vat	address	vat_clean
0	ATU 57194903	123 Pine Ave.	ATU57194903
1	FR 61 954 506 077	main st	FR61954506077
2	7542011030	1234 west main heights 57033	NaN
3	7552A10004	apt 1 789 s maple rd manhattan	NaN
4	8019010008	robie house, 789 north main street	NaN
5	hello	1111 S Figueroa St, Los Angeles, CA 90015	NaN
6	NaN	(staples center) 1111 S Figueroa St, Los Angeles	NaN
7	NULL	hello	NaN

ignore

clean_eu_vat(df, "vat", errors="ignore")

	vat	address	vat_clean
0	ATU 57194903	123 Pine Ave.	ATU57194903
1	FR 61 954 506 077	main st	FR61954506077
2	7542011030	1234 west main heights 57033	7542011030
3	7552A10004	apt 1 789 s maple rd manhattan	7552A10004
4	8019010008	robie house, 789 north main street	8019010008
5	hello	1111 S Figueroa St, Los Angeles, CA 90015	hello
6	NaN	(staples center) 1111 S Figueroa St, Los Angeles	NaN
7	NULL	hello	NaN

4. validate_eu_vat()

validate_eu_vat() returns True when the input is a valid VAT. Otherwise it returns False.

The input of validate_eu_vat() can be a string, a Pandas DataSeries, a Dask DataSeries, a Pandas DataFrame and a dask DataFrame.

When the input is a string, a Pandas DataSeries or a Dask DataSeries, user doesn’t need to specify a column name to be validated.

When the input is a Pandas DataFrame or a dask DataFrame, user can both specify or not specify a column name to be validated. If user specify the column name, validate_eu_vat() only returns the validation result for the specified column. If user doesn’t specify the column name, validate_eu_vat() returns the validation result for the whole DataFrame.

from dataprep.clean import validate_eu_vat
print(validate_eu_vat('ATU 57194903'))
print(validate_eu_vat('FR 61 954 506 077'))
print(validate_eu_vat('7542011030'))
print(validate_eu_vat('7552A10004'))
print(validate_eu_vat('8019010008'))
print(validate_eu_vat("hello"))
print(validate_eu_vat(np.nan))
print(validate_eu_vat("NULL"))

True
True
False
False
False
False
False
False

Series

validate_eu_vat(df["vat"])

0     True
1     True
2    False
3    False
4    False
5    False
6    False
7    False
Name: vat, dtype: bool

DataFrame + Specify Column

validate_eu_vat(df, column="vat")

0     True
1     True
2    False
3    False
4    False
5    False
6    False
7    False
Name: vat, dtype: bool

Only DataFrame

validate_eu_vat(df)

	vat	address
0	True	False
1	True	False
2	False	False
3	False	False
4	False	False
5	False	False
6	False	False
7	False	False