[barcode] proposed code change

[Ciaran Mac Lochlainn]

Hi,

I'm working on a project to generate barcode labels on a laser printer for a
retail environment.  I've looked at a few packages and it seems that GNU
Barcode is very close to having the functionality we need.  I'll need to
make a few changes to the library and to the command line module (these will
be released under the GPL)

When the barcode program reads input from a file or from stdin, if that
input is comma delimited and the part before the comma is a valid EAN-8,
EAN-13 or UPC code, the part after the comma will be treated as "extra text"
to be printed in ASCII.

The *textinfo field in  Barcode_Item will hold the extra text in its own
field, indicated by a caret (^) as a special character similar to the way -
and + are used at present.  Following the caret will be the extra text and
placement information in the format %f %f %s.

Let me know if there's anything else you think I should do (e.g. only
activating the above code with an environment variable or a command line
option) or if you think this implementation won't fit in with what you're
doing - obviously I'd like if my changes could be merged into some future
version.

Thanks

Ciaran

Ciaran Mac Lochlainn              Unix applications programmer
Merit Solutions               Claregalway, Co. Galway, Ireland
http://www.meritsolutions.ie                    +353 91 738055