- How do I install olssonm/swedish-entity in a Laravel application?
- Install it with Composer using composer require olssonm/swedish-entity. Then check the README to see whether a service provider is auto-discovered or must be registered manually, and publish only the config or translation files you actually need. Pin the version and commit your composer.lock, since this is a small utility dependency where surprise upgrades are not worth the risk.
- Which Swedish identifiers does this package support, personnummer, samordningsnummer, or organisationsnummer?
- The package targets Swedish personnummer (social security numbers) and organisationsnummer (organisational numbers), covering validation, formatting, and data extraction. The overview does not promise identity verification or registry lookup, so treat it strictly as a format and checksum utility. Confirm exact variant support, such as samordningsnummer or organisation-number prefixes and separators, against the README and your own anonymized fixtures before relying on it.
- Does it handle 10-digit versus 12-digit personnummer, century handling, and plus or minus separators?
- Verify this explicitly with anonymized test cases, because Swedish identifier rules are subtle and easy to get wrong. Test both 10-digit and 12-digit forms, century boundaries, plus and minus separators, and coordination numbers if your use case needs them. Do not assume the package normalizes each variant exactly the way your business rules require until you have run those cases through it.
- Can the package extract data like birth date, gender, age, or organisation form?
- The description mentions extraction, so the package likely exposes helpers for pulling structured data out of an identifier, but the exact API is not documented in the overview. Check the README for methods that return birth date, gender, age, or organisation form, and normalize those results in your own adapter. Avoid depending on undocumented return shapes directly inside domain code.
- Is Laravel auto-discovery supported, and which PHP and Laravel versions are compatible?
- Composer installation is straightforward, and Laravel auto-discovery is likely available if the package ships a service provider, but you should confirm it in the README or composer.json. Check the PHP and illuminate/support constraints listed there, then add a CI matrix entry for the versions you actually deploy. If the package ships config or translation files, publish only what you need.
- What happens with invalid input, does it throw an exception, return false, or produce a validation message?
- Confirm the exact behavior before integrating, because it can differ between using a Laravel validation rule in a form request and calling helper methods directly. Test both paths with invalid checksums, wrong lengths, and malformed separators. Whichever path you use, make sure your error messages and logs never echo the full identifier.
- Is it safe to use for personnummer under GDPR, and what about PII in logs and error messages?
- Personnummer is sensitive personal data, so treat any validation output as PII. Avoid logging full identifiers or raw invalid input in application logs, exception trackers, or analytics, and redact or hash values where you need to correlate failures. Review user-facing error messages and your retention rules before using this in onboarding or regulated flows, and run it past legal or compliance.
- How should I wrap the package so my domain logic does not depend on it?
- Put a small internal service or value-object factory in front of the package, for example SwedishIdentifierValidator, and have form requests, imports, and domain services depend on that interface. That keeps checksum and format behavior swappable if the package is abandoned or you need a different variant. Contract tests around the adapter make a future migration low-risk.
- Is the package actively maintained and safe for production, and what are the alternatives?
- Adoption is low, around 15 stars, and it appears to be a small, recently released MIT package with a limited maintainer footprint, so treat it as a utility rather than a strategic dependency. Assign an internal owner, pin the version, and watch the repository for activity. If you need alternatives, compare it with other Swedish identifier libraries, a well-tested in-house checksum validator, or your existing regex logic, and keep the package behind an adapter either way.
- How do I test validation rules and edge cases with real-world fixtures?
- Build a fixture suite of anonymized valid, invalid, formatted, and edge-case identifiers before integrating. Cover checksum failures, wrong lengths, plus and minus separators, century boundaries, and organisation-number formatting so regressions are visible. Run the package in shadow mode alongside your existing regex or checksum logic on non-critical flows, compare the results, and only then replace legacy validation.