Question

A container is identified with the label JA1234. This container should always go to destination A.
Another container is identified with the label 1234. The vast majority of containers are labeled this way and these always go to destination B.

(Note: The pool of containers constantly fluctates so we can’t maintain a master list.)

The users can either scan/key in the container identifier. Many of the containers aren’t barcoded so they need to type in the number. When it gets typed in the prefix ‘JA’ gets ignored and suddenly the programs error checks fail (allowing wrong destinations).

To prevent entry and to force barcoding I would like to require the program to scan a barcode. The only way to get the users to scan the barcode consistently is the provide a barcode in a gibberish (ie hexadecimal) format.

Is there a any built-in .NET framework feature that would convert the readable string into something unreadable that would require scanning? It would need to be reversible.

Answer 1

It sounds like you want the users to input the whole string always and you users are ignoring part of the string. To solve this you want the users to just use the barcode scanner.

But you really have three choices.

1. Only print out the barcode. They can’t type what they can’t see. However this is bad because if a barcode is damaged you won’t be able to fallback to user entry

2. Encode it using something like System.Convert.ToBase64String. This is bad because then you’ll have to print values like SkExMjM0 and MTIzNA== for JA1234 and 1234 which is easy to mistype when the users needs to type.

3. Use a check digit and append it to the string. You can then reject codes incorrectly entered or incorrectly read by the barcode scanner. The downside is there’s nothing built in that can directly convert “JA2134” and you have to create your own check digit function.