Codabar Example

From SoftwarePractice.org

Codabar is used in this project as this barcode standard is easy implement in Matlab. This standard makes use of 20 characters which are represented by a unique set of binary code or bars and spaces. The code can only contain a single or a double bar or a space. This is also one of the limitations of Codabar as it does not hold enough information. A double zero is depicted by a wide space and a double one by a two bars. The code used to decrypt the barcode in Matlab makes use of this detail.

The figure below shows how to decrypt a Codabar.

Codabar always begins and ends with a start/stop character. Since Codabar can only have single or double spaces and bars, anything wide is considered as a two bars or space. Also, the start/stop characters are 10 in length and the numbers are 9. A bar stands for ‘1’ and a space stands for ‘0’. The standard does not use any checksum. Each ASCII character is separated by a space. The above image can be decoded as 1011001001 110010101 101101001 110101001 100101011 1010010011. This can be decoded using the Codabar table as A3456B.