I understand that the barcode on the back of most of my books is actually
the 13-digit UPC code, not the 10-digit ISBN. The ISBN is just printed
above. I found this by using a CueCat on the book's back cover.
Ob-perl content- here's Larry Wall's cuecat decoder.
#!/usr/bin/perl -n
printf "Serial: %s Type: %s Code: %s\n",
map {
tr/a-zA-Z0-9+-/ -_/;
$_ = unpack 'u', chr(32 + length()*3/4) . $_;
s/\0+$//;
$_ ^= "C" x length;
} /\.([^.]+)/g;
This decodes all the barcodes I've seen (though I certainly don't have any
finnish books laying around.)
----------------------------------------------------------------
Daniel Allen http://www.coder.com/
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Prescient Code Solutions V: 519-575-3733 F: 309-285-2840
== Q: What do you get when a Postmodernist joins the Mafia? ==
== A: An offer you can't understand. ==
On Tue, 16 Jan 2001, Elaine -HFB- Ashton wrote:
> srl [[EMAIL PROTECTED]] quoth:
> *>
> *>I've got a CueCat barcode reader, available free at Radio Shack,
> *>just waiting for a use. This might be it. Haven't played with it yet
> *>at all.
>
> I looked at doing this but I lack a PC and my soldering iron went missing.
> I did a bit of research and found that for ISBN and some of the other more
> esoteric barcodes [ read finnish ] I could waste my time and be frustrated
> by hacking this oddly phallic rat/cat or I could spend $150 and be done
> with it while having something that reliably works.
>
> There are a couple of CueCat modules up on CPAN as well. If you value
> time more than money, spend a few bucks and get a real scanner.
>
> http://www.snx.com/readfeat.html is the one I purchased as it works iwth
> both Mac and PC. It also got very high marks from people who have used it.
>
> http://search.cpan.org/search?mode=module&query=Barcode
>
> e.
>
