CardScan integration with PHP

Question

I have to integrate my CardScan (from http://cardscan.com/) with my PHP so I can get any information from the card scanned with the device.

Any clue about where I should start?

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I'll try to integrate it with my Ubuntu development enviroment, and the device will be conected to my computer via USB.

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I'm givin a try to SANE, but it doesn't find the device: https://askubuntu.com/questions/24297/problem-with-sane-and-cardscan-cant-find-the-device

Start from determining what PC this device going to be connected to. — Your Common Sense, Feb 01 '11 at 12:29
Note: this is not a magstripe card reader (despite the misleading title) - according to the link, it's a paper business card *scanner*. — Piskvor left the building, Feb 01 '11 at 12:33

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 01 '11 at 12:28

Start by asking them if they have an API, webservice, public interface or a connector that communicates with the outside world. PHP is a web programming language. If this card reader is a phisical device maybe Python or C++ are better for this job.

From what I see their are synchronizing the cards with Outlook so they must have some software outputing information. Try to figure out what is the format and if is available to intercept somewhere.

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 01 '11 at 12:35

You've not provided a lot of the information we would need to answer your question accurately/completely.

PHP is usually run on a webserver to provide a UI via a browser over HTTP - in this architecture the PHP code has no access to the hardware on the client. It is possible to write CLI / Daemon and even GUI applications using PHP integrating directly with the window manager - is this what you are talking about? What OS will this run on?

Since CardScan appears to be a simple scanner, then if the PHP code is running on the machine where the scanner is attached, then it should simply be a matter of running an external program to talk to the scanner and capture the image.

for Linux/Unix use SANE
for MSWindows, use a CLI TWAIN tool - e.g. twain commander
Apple MacOs seems to use a twain API - but you'll need to search to find tools - however it also supports SANE

Installed SANE, detected device, but SANE don't find it: http://askubuntu.com/questions/24297/problem-with-sane-and-cardscan-cant-find-the-device — Thiago Belem, Feb 01 '11 at 14:12

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 01 '11 at 12:30

Now this depends on how the card-reader interfaces out the data from the scanned card. My experience with magnetic stripe readers is that the data is output as keyboard type input.

I would suggest that you need to develop some form of Client Side app - to handle the input, and then post data to the relevant PHP modules on a webserver.

A good start would be the developer manuals for the hardware to understand how it interfaces.

CardScan integration with PHP

3 Answers3