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I have two barcodes that I am working with. They are clearly different, but both scan as code 128. One is weird and one is normal. I have tried to reprint the data for the barcode in every way I can think of to I can see what subset (A, B or C) is being used.

For the normal one I know it is A for the first 10 chars then it changes the encoding to B.

I cannot seem to find out how to see what the encoding is on the other (weird) one.

I am using a symbol scanner. (I turned on the prefix char but that only told me D (Code 128)

Is there any tool to allow me to dig into the barcode symbologies?

Vaccano
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  • Just a guess, but could 128 be an error code, (2's complement of -1 comes to mind...) and they're both scanning incorrectly? – Bob Kaufman Feb 08 '10 at 22:43
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    I think he means Code 128: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_128#Bar_Code_Widths – Pekka Feb 08 '10 at 22:44

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I know very little about barcodes and zero about non-european ones, but for weird implementations of Code 128, there is also GS1-128.

This online barcode generator looks quite nice and can generate a lot of formats you might want to check against.

Pekka
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Chiming in late here, but the ZXing library (I'm a developer) reads Code 128. You could have it scan the barcode while you attach a debugger to the code. It would show you exactly what's happening, step by step, in the decoding, including subset changes.

Sean Owen
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I know the problem is fixed. But here's some more resource in case someone's in need :)

Like Pekka mentioned, a Code 128 have subsets like Code 128A, Code 128B, Code 128C and GS1-128(UCC/EAN-128). Here is more information on Code 128 barcode, with encoding pattern illustration.

Andrew Barber
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Thomas Smith Claimed
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  • I removed your link because it is spam for your product, and is not related to the question asked. The rest of your answer might be relevant, so I have left it. – Andrew Barber Mar 05 '13 at 10:39
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Thanks for those that answered and commented.

Turns out the company that made our barcodes had a printing error. That caused the barcode to look different.

How it ever successfully decoded I do not know. Anyway. I am going to award the question to Pekka because he gave me a workable solution.

Vaccano
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  • As you are aware, Code 128 allows different code sets to be combined in a barcode, and many characters are representable in more than one set. Thus, there may be more than one way to represent a string of characters. For example, x1234y could be represented as six characters in set B, or, starting in set B, as "x", "switch to set C", "12", "34", "switch to B", "y" (which ends up the same size). – supercat Oct 12 '12 at 19:30