How to read a barcode with PBCC/PBWIN

[Fred Luchsinger]

I made a programm in PBCC 5.0 in which a membership is controlled by typing the membershipnumber on the keyboard. How can I change it that the number can also be controlled when somebody puts his or her membercard through a barcode-reader ? Is that possible with the graphic possibillities of PBCC or do I have tu use PBWin ? I could not find any code example in the frequent asked questions and have no idea how to programm this. I suspect that it depends also on the type of barcode-reader.

[Paul Dixon]

Fred,
many barcode readers will act as a keyboard. You just put the caret where you want the number to go and either type it at the keyboard or scan it with the barcode reader and, either way, the number will appear as if it was typed at the keyboard.

Look for a "keyboard wedge" barcode reader. They just plug in alongside your keyboard and there should then be no extra programming required to allow the use of such a barcode reader with your program.

Paul.

[Gary Stout]

Fred,

Paul is right, it is as easy as plugging the barcode scanner into the keyboard port....... I done a barcode project a few years back and used the PS-2 style scanners. There is also USB style. A good source of hardware is www.posguys.com

If you do a google search, you can find some free barcode fonts as well, such as 3 of 9.

HTH,
Gary

[Herman Kieskamp]

Hi Fred,

We have fully functionable barcode use from within PB for EAN13. we use it in our productdatabase software.
functions;
scan-interpretation(do validation control check with last digit and extract the real code),
Print preparation: (do calculation to get controldigit).
Print (uses GDI=pbwin), this wil create a graphical barcode available in clipboard to paste to whatever, or to print.
What you have to take in consideration for your own application, is that the last digit is a control digit,
so to get the pure what-ever code you need, is to check validity of barcode by doing controlcalculation over the remaining digits. This way you make sure that what you read is correct and will provide the realcode. But if it is your own application only, you might use the full barcode for yourself and dont need any calculation. Hence, in fact, most barcode-scanners have build in validity check, and will fail if a barcode is invalid. So you could also just distract the last digit.
There are many sorts of barcodestandards, like EAN13/EAN128, etc. make sure your barcodescanner supports the barcode that is on the card.
There are many source code examples on these forums, although some have some glitches, you can work it out as we did. If not, or If you need any help, throw me a e-mail at pb at kikozo.com


Herman.

[Herman Kieskamp]

Whoops not a good example of how to use the forums

Hi Lance, or other moderator,

I Just noticed i answered this thread while it was residing in a wrong entry,
please be so kind to move this thread to the appropriate(PBCC) forum.

This is not a good example, of how to use these forums, but it seems that it was not moved(july) when I answered it from the forum-entry. just noticed barcode, and here I went.

Thnx in advance.
Herman.