mickie2000 has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I have just created a report generator for a client of mine but they are having some serious inventory issues. I opened my bug mouth and suggested a bar coding system which went over well with the client - unfortunately i don't know a thing about bar coding systems. Has anybody had any experience with these types of systems? Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

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Re: Bar Coding
by Roger (Parson) on Mar 04, 2004 at 03:42 UTC
    I have worked in the printing industry for 4 years, dealing with many kinds of barcode generators and barcode readers. As to choose a particular barcode system, it all depends. The barcode we normally use is Barcode 128. There are perl modules on CPAN for generating it. Have a look at the Barcode::Code128 and GD::Barcode modules on CPAN. Your client obviously need to buy a barcode scanner. That comes with or without device drivers depending on the hardware. Install the barcode reader by connecting keyboard to the scanner, and then connect the scanner to the keyboard port. Now you scan the code, and it simulates key strokes. There is nothing much to it, really. You can read it with <STDIN>.

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[d/l]

      I was intrigued by an entry in Simon Cozen's blog. He supplies the ISBN number and downloads information about his books (title, publisher, author etc) via Net::Amazon. This is then inserted into a database.

      I wouldn't mind doing this for my own books. I'm wondering if it's possible to make things even easier by removing the keying step entirely. Do you know if any of the barcodes on the back of most books is an ISBN number?

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Re: Bar Coding
by arden (Curate) on Mar 04, 2004 at 01:55 UTC
    Although this is quite off-topic. . . I've done work with bar-coding systems from Symbol Technologies. Basically, a bar-code is just a different font, the scanner will read it and convert it into a string of characters. Once it's into characters, then you can manipulate it however you wish with Perl.

    There are several modules on CPAN that deal with Barcodes. Take a look at some of them. . .

    - - arden.

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Re: Bar Coding
by kvale (Monsignor) on Mar 04, 2004 at 01:55 UTC
    I cannot give advice on the best barcode system, but there are a number of perl modules that generate varieties of barcode. The possibilities offred at CPAN could bias your hardware choice.

    The CueCat barcode readers seem to be popular with Linux hackers.

    -Mark

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