Barcode API scanning Barcode with ISO-8859-1/Latin-1 encoded data

[aps]

Hello Android-Vision Team,

I'm currently having a big problem with using the Barcode API. I need to scan Barcodes where the payload is an XML with ISO-8859-1 (Latin-1) encoded data. I used the Barcode Sample to verify that's not just an issue with the integration in our App but a general problem with the Library. Here are two examples of a Barcode. One is working and the other is not. It's due to the special characters (äöüß) within the payload.

Working:

Not working:

It seems that the parser per default uses UTF-8 when creating the String from the parsed data. As long as there are no special charaters in it everything works fine. If the payload contains special characters (äöüß) they will be displayed not correct due to the wrong encoding.

That is tested on a Nexus 4 with Android 4.2.2

On a Nexus 6p with Android 7, the application crashes when there are special characters in the payload because the native method call throws an Exception in "NewStringUTF".

Is there a way to define the encoding of the payload or to just get the byte array instead of the Barcode object with the already encoded String?

[pchx-zz]

Thanks for reporting this issue. We expect a fix in a future release will properly convert text to UTF-8.

[vogelt]

Hi everybody,
I have the same issue here. As mentioned, I think that the native C-implementation expects UTF-8 encoded text, but the payload of the barcodes is encoded in Latin1. I have tested on a LG G4 with Android 6 and the application crashes also on this device.

Is there any workaround? For example specifying the encoding of the payload?

In the case of the above shown barcodes we haven't influence on the encoding, because the encoding is defined by a kind of law.

Is the fix already scheduled? In this moment I have to decide using the Google Play Library or an other third-party library for scanning the barcodes... I'd rather use the Google Play Library, but I know that at least one other library which can handle Latin1 encoded payload.

Regards
Thomas Vogel

[juanestebanj]

@pchx Hello, good morning.
I just want to suggest that you allow us to get the byte array by sending some flag (for example: do not decode string), and that might be a really simple, easy-to-implement solution that you could deliver.

I'm coding a solution reading barcodes, and I'd rather use Mobile Vision library.
Just wondering if you might have a release date estimate? Thanks for your interest!