[reportlab-users] barcodes encoded with Code 128 not always optimally encoded

[Andy Robinson]

Josh, thanks for this.

The barcode code was a contribution from someone who worked in the
field, and none of our current developers are very familiar with the
standards.  We adopted a pretty simple standard of "if our scanner
reads it, it's OK".  I am a little nervous of making a change.  Are
you in a position to help with testing on a variety of readers if we
make a change?

- Andy Robinson, ReportLab


On 24 February 2013 00:09, Josh Hieronymus <josh.p.hieronymus at gmail.com> wrote:

> I've noticed that when I use ReportLab to create Code 128-encoded barcodes,

> the barcodes are longer than they need to be. The barcode created by

> Code128("A\x00"), for example, encodes two extra symbols. Looking through

> code128.py, it seems that the generated barcode for this example

> unnecessarily begins in subcode B, switches to subcode A to code the symbol

> for "\x00", then switches back to subcode B. If the barcode started in

> subcode A, it would not need to switch.