Barcode Scanning for inventory use

[Neil]

Let me start off by saying I am not a developer, so please excuse my
ignorance concerning this software. The concerns I have pertain to
registering and tracking inventory for my company.

Lets assume that each unit of my inventory is unique, meaning that
each item needs its own ID# and, therefore, a unique barcode assigned
to it as well. When dealing with 1000's of units of inventory, is it
possible/practical to produce a unique barcode for each one?

And since I need my application to check my inventory, I do not want
the reader to recognize/input barcodes that are not assigned in my
inventory database. Is it then possible to develop an application
that reads only the barcodes I have allowed to read? If so, how, and
which type of barcode image would you recommend?

Also, but slightly off topic, I looked at redlaser.com, and it appears
that they license their software to developers through a pay-per-usage
type model. Aside from being open source, how does zxing's software
compare to redlaser's, and, based on my needs, as I mentioned before,
which would you recommend?

Thanks a lot
Neil

[Sean Owen]

If you have unique IDs, those can certainly produce unique barcodes. In fact, they have to or else how could you uniquely decode the ID?

You can scan everything in Barcode Scanner and export the history as CSV via email or something. It will read any barcode it can, so may include barcodes you don't want. But you could filter that afterwards.

Or you can write your own app which calls to Barcode Scanner by Intent and then does whatever you want with the result.

As I understand RedLaser remains based on this library. Where it is different would not be relevant to your use case. So I don't think there's a real difference.

[Neil]

thanks appreciate it