Information from barcodes

rosy

Was just reading the daily paper thread and came across this:

Barcode is - 9916090039992 - so may have to be manually input? and also this:

"999" as the price (digits 10-12 in the barcode) will prompt the till for a manual price input,

I was wondering if anyone out there could explain what information you can actually get from the barcode ( I thought it was all just a random load of numbers that the till somehow recognised but obviously it's more logical than that! ) It would be really useful to know, thanks! ( I did a search but nothing obvious came up).

ManAtHome

Ordinary stuff you buy (beans, milk, cornflakes etc) have a bacode assigned - stores then program the price-lookup in their tills so when you scan, the correct price comes up (most of the time). Try googling for UPC EAN.

If you're printing your own labels or getting the supplier to do it, you can do pretty much what you like, so a 999 somewhere in the code won't necessarily mean the same thing in all shops.

For general barcode info try code128 and/or barcode symbology.

olympian

rosy wrote: »

Was just reading the daily paper thread and came across this:

Barcode is - 9916090039992 - so may have to be manually input? and also this:

"999" as the price (digits 10-12 in the barcode) will prompt the till for a manual price input,

I was wondering if anyone out there could explain what information you can actually get from the barcode ( I thought it was all just a random load of numbers that the till somehow recognised but obviously it's more logical than that! ) It would be really useful to know, thanks! ( I did a search but nothing obvious came up).

Majority of barcodes found in supermarkets are EAN13 type. For most products, digits 1-2 are country code (UK=50), digits 3-7 are manufacturer /supplier, digits 8-12 are the product, and digit 13 is a check digit. Sometimes digits 10-12 are used for price such as when buying loose meat from counter.

Magazines are different and use a 15-digit barcode. Digits 1-3 are 977 which means a periodical publication, digits 4-9 are first 7 digits from the ISSN, digits 10-11 are a sequence variant and increment each issue (in case price is different), digit 12 is check digit, and finally digits 14-15 are the issue week or month.

Coupons also use EAN13, but are slightly different again - digits 1-2 are 99, digits 3-6 are issuer number, digits 7-9 are campaign number, digits 10-12 are price in pence [max price is £9.98 - using 999 or 000 will prompt tills for a manual price input], digit 13 is check digit.