[barcode] EAN128 FNC1 generation in GNU barcode program

[Franz Zahaurek]

Hy Håkan Boye,

Håkan Boye writes:

> In the barcode program  , I try to generate FNC1
> The barcode docs state 
> "--the F1-F4 characters are represented by the values 193-196 (0xc1-0xc4, 
> 0301-0304). "
>
> I use  echo in a string to produce the character:
>
> echo "97xxx\0301941234567890"> xx

Try echo with the Option -e and use \301 instead of \0301.
You can check the contents of xx with: od -c xx

See the subtile difference:

[tmp] >echo -e '97xxx\0301941234567890' > xx
[tmp] >od -c xx
0000000   9   7   x   x   x 030   1   9   4   1   2   3   4   5   6   7
0000020   8   9   0  \n
0000024
[tmp] >echo -e '97xxx\301941234567890' > xx
[tmp] >od -c xx
0000000   9   7   x   x   x 301   9   4   1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8
0000020   9   0  \n
0000023

>
> barcode -i xx -o xx.ps -e128 -p210x297mm -umm -t2x9+5+5-5-10 -m6,6 -c
>
> The resulting barcode is readable in a Datalogic  handheld barcode 
> scanner.
> But it seems that the FNC1 character is not in place .
> When I compare to other barcodes produced by other software, I always get
> an unprintable FNC1-char before the second AI,  (94 in the example above) 
> . 
> The barcode generated with GNU barcode program, does not  show this 
> character
> when I read it with the scanner.
>
> Can someone please point me in the right direction ?

Hope it helps.
-- 
Franz Zahaurek                          fzk@fzk.at
Vienna, Austria, Europe                 http://www.fzk.at