Reading barcodes

Opticon Barcode scanners can read all major barcode types and some special ones. By default all major barcode types can be read.
A large number of parameters are available to influence the way barcodes are being read. They are listed in the section: Systemsettings.
These parameters can be set with the SystemSetting() function.
Options exist for setting which barcode types must be read and many more. All options can be found at OptiConfigure
Setting only the barcode types used in your application is good practice, since it reduces the probability of false reads.

For the 1D laser scanners and 2D CMOS scanners, other options exist that influence the performance of the scanner.
They are also listed in the Systemsettings-section
They can be set by using the SystemSetting() function.
The redundancy setting specifies how many times a barcodes must be decoded in a row, before it is accepted as a valid read. By default it is set to two.
The scan-engine is the part of the handheld terminal that reads the barcodes and stores this information in a buffer for further processing
Use the ReadBarcode() function to retrieve the latest decoded barcode.
The scan-engine can be controlled from the application by the ScannerPower() function.
After the handheld terminal reads a barcode the scan-engine will be switched off or continue reading ("multiple read"), depending on which parameters were passed to ScannerPower().
If ReadBarcode() finds a valid barcode, it returns the barcode, else it returns an error code.
It is important to understand that ReadBarcode() must be called repeatedly, in a loop to yield a barcode.
Each time ReadBarcode() is called, it processes the scan-engine data, if present, and then returns.
In this respect it is much like getchar() on an stream, that neither waits for a keystroke, but returns immediately.