mpan

A library to help you parse the UK energy industry's MPAN number format.

How it works

from mpan import MPAN


mpan = MPAN("A valid MPAN")

Just import the library and pass it the MPAN you want to parse. In response you get a handy MPAN object with a number of convenient properties:

The Basics

The most common use is likely to be in examining the "core":

mpan = MPAN("001112221312345678907")

mpan.top_line    # "00111222"
mpan.core        # "1312345678907"
mpan.identifier  # "12345678"
mpan.is_short    # False
mpan.is_long     # True
mpan.as_short    # "1312345678907"

mpan = MPAN("1312345678907")

mpan.top_line    # None
mpan.core        # "1312345678907"
mpan.identifier  # "12345678"
mpan.is_short    # True
mpan.is_long     # False
mpan.as_short    # "1312345678907"

The Top Line

You can also go deeper though, and interrogate the top line:

mpan = MPAN("001112221312345678907")

mpan.profile_class                       # A ProfileClass instance
mpan.profile_class.identifier            # "00"
mpan.profile_class.description           # "Half-hourly supply (import and export)"
mpan.profile_class.is_valid              # True

mpan.meter_time_switch_code              # A MeterTimeSwitchCode instance
mpan.meter_time_switch_code.identifier   # "111"
mpan.meter_time_switch_code.description  # "DNO specific"
mpan.meter_time_switch_code.is_valid     # True

mpan.line_loss_factor_class              # "222"

Note however that if you don't supply a long MPAN, this library can't help you:

mpan = MPAN("1312345678907")

mpan.profile_class           # None
mpan.meter_time_switch_code  # None
mpan.line_loss_factor_class  # None

The Distributor

The core can also be broken up to look into the distributor, which is a little tricky, since the distributor id can either refer to a DNO (which has a known set of properties) or an IDNO (which has a different set). We handle this discrepancy by returning None in cases where the requested information is unavailable:

mpan = MPAN("2099999999993")

mpan.distributor                   # A Distributor instance
mpan.distributor.identifier        # "20"
mpan.distributor.area              # "Southern England"
mpan.distributor.gsp_group_id      # "_H"
mpan.distributor.operator          # "Scottish & Southern Electricity Networks"
mpan.distributor.participant_id    # "SOUT"
mpan.distributor.is_dno            # True
mpan.distributor.is_idno           # False
mpan.distributor.is_valid          # True
mpan.distributor.licensee          # None
mpan.distributor.mpas_operator_id  # None
mpan.distributor.name              # None

mpan = MPAN("2499999999991")

mpan.distributor                   # A Distributor instance
mpan.distributor.identifier        # "24"
mpan.distributor.area              # None
mpan.distributor.gsp_group_id      # None
mpan.distributor.operator          # None
mpan.distributor.participant_id    # None
mpan.distributor.is_dno            # False
mpan.distributor.is_idno           # True
mpan.distributor.is_valid          # True
mpan.distributor.licensee          # "Independent Power Networks"
mpan.distributor.mpas_operator_id  # "IPNL"
mpan.distributor.name              # "Envoy"

Aliases

For people who want to limit the number of characters they're typing, we recognise a few standard acronyms:

mpan.pc    # Profile Class
mpan.mtc   # Meter Time Switch Code
mpan.llfc  # Line Loss Factor Class

Validation Options

You've got choices for validation. .is_valid() will check your MPAN string and return a boolean value indicating whether it's valid or not, while you can call .check() on an MPAN instance, which will explode with an InvalidMpanError if your string doesn't check out.

An important note about validation

There are four aspects of validation performed by the validation checks below: the profile class and meter time switch code (if provided as part of the top line in a long MPAN) will be checked against a list of known values, the distributor from the core will be similarly checked, and finally the formula for the check digit will be applied.

from mpan import InvalidMPANError, MPAN


MPAN("2499999999991").is_valid          # True
MPAN("2499999999990").is_valid          # False  (bad checksum)
MPAN("8699999999991").is_valid          # False  (bad distributor)
MPAN("001112221312345678907").is_valid  # True
MPAN("991112221312345678907").is_valid  # False  (bad profile class)
MPAN("000002221312345678907").is_valid  # False  (bad meter time switch code)

MPAN("I am not an MPAN")                # InvalidMPANError

try:
    MPAN("2499999999991").check()  # Returns None
    MPAN("2499999999990").check()  # Raises an InvalidMPANError
except InvalidMPANError:
    print("This MPAN is broken")

There's also a shortcut if you just want validation:

from mpan import is_valid


is_valid("2499999999991")     # True
is_valid("2499999999990")     # False
is_valid("I am not an MPAN")  # False

Installation

It's on PyPI:

$ pip install mpan

Requirements

This is a pure-python module with no external dependencies. However, you'll need to be running Python 3.8 or higher.

Development

Setting up a Local Development Environment

We're using Poetry, so if you want to make some changes, you should install that and then just run poetry install. This will pull in all the development dependencies like pytest, isort, etc.

Testing

When inside your virtualenv, just run:

$ pytest

Deployment/Releases

To build, use Poetry:

$ poetry build

To publish a new release, use Poetry for that too:

$ poetry publish

External Documentation

This is based largely on the Wikipedia article on the MPAN standard. The validation code for example is cribbed right from there.

Changelog

1.0.4

• Minor update to the validation error message.

1.0.3

• Bugfix: Comparing two identical MPAN objects now returns boolean True, while comparing an MPAN object to a string of the same value returns False.
• Added lots more documentation to the README.

1.0.2

• .is_valid() was amended to validate the top row as well.
• is_valid() now returns a boolean rather than potentially throwing an InvalidMPANError.

1.0.1

• Minor change to use a new contact email

1.0.0

• Initial release