sdatabar - Convert a raw SDATA file into an intermediate barcode file
sdatabar [-e] < input_file > intermediate_barcode_file
sdatabar -?
sdatabar is a program that reads a raw SDATA file from standard input and writes the corresponding intermediate barcode file to standard output. Records in the SDATA file containing numeric data are turned into type 6 barcode rows, while those containing alpha data are turned into type 7 rows. Other SDATA records cannot be represented by HP41 barcode, and are skipped, giving a suitable error message.
The output of sdatabar can be piped to a suitable barcode printing program such as barps
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-e |
HP82153 barcode wands with the version 1E ROM have a bug which means they cannot read numeric data barcode rows containing 10 or more data bytes. Unfortunately, some HP41 real numbers require 10 bytes to represent them in barcode format. If the -e option is given to sdatabar, the program attempts to reduce the length of the barcode by omitting the decimal point and adjusting the exponent to compensate. This is not always possible, in which case, a suitable message is written to standard error, and the last mantissa digit is omitted from the barcode. | ||
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-? |
Print a message giving usage to standard error and exit |
The format of HP41 barcode is given in the book Creating your own HP41 Barcode (Hewlett-Packard)
The format of the barcode file written by sdatabar is given in barcode(5)
If data1.sda is a raw sdata file, and postscript is a postscript printer then
sdatabar < data1.sda | barps ’Data File 1’ | lpr -P postscript
will print that file on the postscript printer.
The HP82153 wand can’t accept data other than standard numeric or alpha data, so some sdata files cannot be translated correctly. Version 1E wands cannot read some numeric data barcode, as described above.
sdatabar was written by Tony Duell, ard@p850ug1.demon.co.uk, and has been placed under the GNU Public License version 2.0