KtoBLZCheck is a library to check account numbers and bank codes of German banks. Naming explanation: This library provides a check for "kto" (German abbreviation for account number) and "blz" (German abbreviation for bank identification code, A.B.A. code or similar). Introduction ------------ Both a library for other programs as well as a short command-line tool is available. It is possible to check pairs of account numbers and bank codes (BLZ) of German banks, and to map bank codes (BLZ) to the clear-text name and location of the bank. Python bindings are provided as well (--enable-python; requires the python module "ctypes"). For compile instructions concerning MS Windows, please see the file README.WIN32. On the download page a self-installing setup file for Windows compiled with MinGW/gcc3.2 can be found. Compile & Install ----------------- How to compile: If you got this package from GIT, then type "./autogen.sh" to create the necessary build tools. Then: Type ./configure to calculate some system dependencies. See "./configure --help" for possible options. Now type make make install and you're done. Running ------- ktoblzcheck <your-bank-id> <your-account-id> Some example BLZ;Account-ids are the following from Bundesbank: 64192220;12345008 20210200;0240334000 56061472;0000191919 The ktoblzcheck command has several optional arguments; use "--help" to see a summary. (The argument --outformat by default is "multiline". The other choice, "--outformat=oneline", gives you one line of result with the following tab-delimited fields: "bank name, bank city, result of check, BLZ, accountId, name of the checking algorithm". This format is more suitable if multiple account numbers are read from an input file using the option --infile.) Bank List Format ---------------- A file with all bank codes (BLZ Datei) can regularly be retrieved from the Deutsche Bundesbank at bundesbank.de, more specifically from http://www.bundesbank.de/zahlungsverkehr/zahlungsverkehr_bankleitzahlen_download.php Updating to the most recent bank data file is done by running the provided script online_update.pl. Since version 1.16, ktoblzcheck installs multiple bankdata files which are valid at different dates. Each of the bank code files from the Deutsche Bundesbank is valid for three (3) months. Ktoblzcheck ships with the bankdata file from several validity periods: One file is valid at the date of release; and the second file is valid in the three subsequent months (i.e. it is newer). If even the newest file is outdated at the day of when libktoblzcheck is used, a warning line will be printed to stderr and the newest file will be used anyway. Note: The available files (marked by the first valid day as part of the filename) and their validity period are looked up by simply taking all files in the BANKDATA_PATH folder into consideration. Hence, you can install a new bank data file by copying the correct file format into that folder, which is done automatically by the perl script online_update.pl. Note 2nd: The bank data file "bankdata.txt" with no date in the file name is not used anymore. It used to be a one-to-one copy of the newest file, but with ktoblzcheck-1.35 this file is neither used nor shipped anymore. Note 3rd: All of the above is ignored if a bankdata file is explicitly requested by the command line argument --file=... . In that case the specified file is used and no further date comparisons are made. Since version 1.3, ktoblzcheck includes a script for automated download of a new bankdata file in /usr/share/ktoblzcheck/online_update.pl . Simply run this script with no arguments. It will first download the information HTML page by bundesbank and parse this page for BLZ updates. Then, the user will be asked whether one particular available file should be downloaded. If the user agrees, the file is downloaded, copied into the correct BANKDATA_PATH, and converted into ktoblzcheck's format. Since ktoblzcheck-1.35 this downloaded file will automatically be used as soon as its validity date starts. The bankdata.txt file used by ktoblzcheck contains less information than the file provided by the Bundesbank. Namely, it contains only four tab-delimited columns and only those lines that refer to the main institutes instead of all branches. The provided sed script src/bankdata/bundesbank.sed (provided by Daniel Gloeckner <daniel-gl@gmx.net>) will automatically convert the Bundesbank's ascii file into the required ktoblzcheck format. If you got the Bundesbank BLZ file in excel format, the four columns for bankdata.txt are A, O, G, J, in that order, and it has only those lines which have a '1' in column B. Authors ------- The original author was Fabian Kaiser <fabian@openhbci.de>. The current maintainer is Christian Stimming <stimming@tuhh.de> and Alexander Kurz <sf2@blala.de>. For contacting the authors, please write to the mailing list <aqbanking-general@sourceforge.net>. This list is subscriber-only which means you need to subscribe if you want to post to the list. Subscription information can be found on http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/aqbanking-general Related projects ---------------- A ruby interface to ktoblzcheck: http://www.vdp-software.com/Rbktoblzcheck/ A different implementation of this checking algorithms: http://www.informatik.fh-mannheim.de/konto_check/
