Oracle BI Publisher Blog

With XML Publisher 5.6.2 you now have the ability to execute pre processing on your data prior to applying a barcode font to the data in the output document. For example you may need to calculate checksum values or start and end bits for the data before formatting them.

In lieu of Oracle not having the barcode fonts available I have worked with the popular IDAutomation fonts, they provide the necessary java code support for their fonts.
Information on their fornts can be found here: http://www.idautomation.com/fonts/

Information on their java source code here: http://www.idautomation.com/fonts/tools/sourcecode/FontIDAutomation.txt

The solution requires that you register a barcode encoding class with XML Publisher that can then be instantiated at runtime to carry out the formatting in the template. This is covered in <<link to class description and sample and setup>>
In the template there are two new commands that need to be used to enable the formatting feature.

<?register-barcode-vendor:java_class_name;barcode_vendor_id?>

This command registers the barcode encoding class. It requires a java class name, this will carry out the encoding and a barcode vendor ID as defined by the class. This command needs to appear before the commands to encode the data in the template. For example:
<?register-barcode-vendor:弛racle.apps.xdo.template.rtf.util.barcoder.BarcodeUtil?;'XMLPBarVendor'?>

So the class is defined as 双racle.apps.xdo.template.rtf.util.barcoder.BarcodeUtil? and the vendor id as 'XMLPBarVendor'

For the data to be encoded the following command is required:

<?format-barcode:data;barcode_type;barcode_vendor_id?>

This accepts:
?    data ? the element in the XML to be encoded
?    barcode_type ? this is the method in the encoding class used to format the data e.g. Code128a
?    barcode_vendor_id ? this is the ID as defined in the register-barcode-vendor field.

At runtime the barcode_type method will be called to format the data value and the barcode font will then be applied to the data in the final output. So in the template create the field and highlight it with you chosen bardcode (make sure the font is available at runtime) and you're done .. for the template anyway. Now you'll need to write the class to carry out the encoding ... dont panic we have an example you can copy.

Advanced Barcode Font Formatting Implementation

For the advanced formatting to work in the template a java class is required that will have the appropriate methods to format the data at runtime. Many font vendors offer the code with their fonts to carry out the formatting, these need to be incorporated as methods into a class that is available to the XML Publisher formatting libraries at runtime. There are some specific interfaces that need to be provided in the class for the library to call the correct method for encoding.
This class has to have the following 3 methods implemented:

/**
 * Return a unique ID for this bacode encoder
 * @return the id as a string
 */
  public String getVendorID();

/**
 * Return true if this encoder support a specific type of barcode
 * @param type the type of the barcode
 * @return true if supported
 */
  public boolean isSupported(String type);

/**
 * Encode a barcode string by given a specific type
 * @param data the original data for the barcode
 * @param type the type of the barcode
 * @return the formatted data
 */
  public String encode(String data, String type);

The class should located in the classpath for the middle tier JVM in which XML Publisher is running.

Note: For EBS users the class needs to be in the classpath for the middle tier and any concurrent tiers that are present.

If in the <?register-barcode-vendor:...?> command, the barcode_vendor_id is not provided. XML Publisher will call the getVendorID() and use the result of the method as ID for the vendor.

An example class that supports the code128 a, b and c encodings follows. You'll need to compile the class and to do that you'll need the XMLP java libraries in the classpath to compile. Once you have that you can simply copy the following code and add your encoding methods.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

package oracle.apps.xdo.template.rtf.util.barcoder;

import java.util.Hashtable;
import java.lang.reflect.Method;
import oracle.apps.xdo.template.rtf.util.XDOBarcodeEncoder;
import oracle.apps.xdo.common.log.Logger;
// This class name will be used in the register vendor field in the template.

public class BarcodeUtil  implements XDOBarcodeEncoder
// The class implements the XDOBarcodeEncoder interface
{
// This is the barcode vendor id that is used in the register vendor field and format-barcode fields
  public static final String BARCODE_VENDOR_ID = "XMLPBarVendor";
// The hastable is used to store references to the encoding methods
  public static final Hashtable ENCODERS = new Hashtable(10);
// The BarcodeUtil class needs to be instantiated
  public static final BarcodeUtil mUtility = new BarcodeUtil();
// This is the main code that is executed in the class, it is loading the methods for the encoding into the hashtable. In this case we are loading the three code128 encoding methods we have created.
  static {
    try {
      Class[] clazz = new Class[] { "".getClass() };
     
      ENCODERS.put("code128a",mUtility.getClass().getMethod("code128a", clazz));
      ENCODERS.put("code128b",mUtility.getClass().getMethod("code128b", clazz));
      ENCODERS.put("code128c",mUtility.getClass().getMethod("code128c", clazz));
     
     } catch (Exception e) {
 // This is using the XML Publisher logging class to push errors to the XMLP log file.
      Logger.log(e,5);
    }
  }

// The getVendorID method is called from the template layer at runtime to ensure the correct encoding method are used
    public final String getVendorID()
    {
        return BARCODE_VENDOR_ID;
    }
//The isSupported method is called to ensure that the encoding method called from the template is actually present in this class. If not then XMLP will report this in the log.
    public final boolean isSupported(String s)
    {
        if(s != null)
            return ENCODERS.containsKey(s.trim().toLowerCase());
        else
            return false;
    }

// The encode method is called to then call the appropriate encoding method, in this example the code128a/b/c methods.

   public final String encode(String s, String s1)
    {
        if(s != null && s1 != null)
        {
            try
            {
                Method method = (Method)ENCODERS.get(s1.trim().toLowerCase());
                if(method != null)
                    return (String)method.invoke(this, new Object[] {
                        s
                    });
                else
                    return s;
            }
            catch(Exception exception)
            {
                  Logger.log(exception,5);
            }
            return s;
        } else
        {
            return s;
        }
    }

  /** This is the complete method for Code128a */

  public static final String code128a( String DataToEncode )
  {
    char C128_Start = (char)203;
    char C128_Stop = (char)206;
    String Printable_string = "";
    char CurrentChar;
    int CurrentValue=0;
    int weightedTotal=0;
    int CheckDigitValue=0;
    char C128_CheckDigit='w';
 
    DataToEncode = DataToEncode.trim();
    weightedTotal = ((int)C128_Start) - 100;
    for( int i = 1; i <= DataToEncode.length(); i++ )
      {
    //get the value of each character
    CurrentChar = DataToEncode.charAt(i-1);
    if( ((int)CurrentChar) < 135 )
      CurrentValue = ((int)CurrentChar) - 32;
    if( ((int)CurrentChar) > 134 )
      CurrentValue = ((int)CurrentChar) - 100;
 
    CurrentValue = CurrentValue * i;
    weightedTotal = weightedTotal + CurrentValue;
      }
    //divide the WeightedTotal by 103 and get the remainder,
    //this is the CheckDigitValue
    CheckDigitValue = weightedTotal % 103;
    if( (CheckDigitValue < 95) && (CheckDigitValue > 0) )
      C128_CheckDigit = (char)(CheckDigitValue + 32);
    if( CheckDigitValue > 94 )
      C128_CheckDigit = (char)(CheckDigitValue + 100);
    if( CheckDigitValue == 0 ){
      C128_CheckDigit = (char)194;
    }
 
    Printable_string = C128_Start + DataToEncode + C128_CheckDigit + C128_Stop + " ";
    return Printable_string;
  }

  /** This is the complete method for Code128b ***/

  public static final String code128b( String DataToEncode )
  {
    char C128_Start = (char)204;
    char C128_Stop = (char)206;
    String Printable_string = "";
    char CurrentChar;
    int CurrentValue=0;
    int weightedTotal=0;
    int CheckDigitValue=0;
    char C128_CheckDigit='w';

    DataToEncode = DataToEncode.trim();
    weightedTotal = ((int)C128_Start) - 100;
    for( int i = 1; i <= DataToEncode.length(); i++ )
      {
    //get the value of each character
    CurrentChar = DataToEncode.charAt(i-1);
    if( ((int)CurrentChar) < 135 )
      CurrentValue = ((int)CurrentChar) - 32;
    if( ((int)CurrentChar) > 134 )
      CurrentValue = ((int)CurrentChar) - 100;
 
    CurrentValue = CurrentValue * i;
    weightedTotal = weightedTotal + CurrentValue;
      }
    //divide the WeightedTotal by 103 and get the remainder,
    //this is the CheckDigitValue
    CheckDigitValue = weightedTotal % 103;
    if( (CheckDigitValue < 95) && (CheckDigitValue > 0) )
      C128_CheckDigit = (char)(CheckDigitValue + 32);
    if( CheckDigitValue > 94 )
      C128_CheckDigit = (char)(CheckDigitValue + 100);
    if( CheckDigitValue == 0 ){
      C128_CheckDigit = (char)194;
    }
 
    Printable_string = C128_Start + DataToEncode + C128_CheckDigit + C128_Stop + " ";
    return Printable_string;
  }

  /** This is the complete method for Code128c **/

  public static final String code128c( String s )
  {
    char C128_Start = (char)205;
    char C128_Stop = (char)206;
    String Printable_string = "";
    String DataToPrint = "";
    String OnlyCorrectData = "";
    int i=1;
    int CurrentChar=0;
    int CurrentValue=0;
    int weightedTotal=0;
    int CheckDigitValue=0;
    char C128_CheckDigit='w';
    DataToPrint = "";
    s = s.trim();
    for(i = 1; i <= s.length(); i++ )
      {
    //Add only numbers to OnlyCorrectData string
    CurrentChar = (int)s.charAt(i-1);
    if((CurrentChar < 58) && (CurrentChar > 47))
      {
        OnlyCorrectData = OnlyCorrectData + (char)s.charAt(i-1);
      }
      }
    s = OnlyCorrectData;
    //Check for an even number of digits, add 0 if not even
    if( (s.length() % 2) == 1 )
      {
    s = "0" + s;
      }
    //<<<< Calculate Modulo 103 Check Digit and generate DataToPrint >>>>
    //Set WeightedTotal to the Code 128 value of the start character
    weightedTotal = ((int)C128_Start) - 100;
    int WeightValue = 1;
    for( i = 1; i <= s.length(); i += 2 )
      {
    //Get the value of each number pair (ex: 5 and 6 = 5*10+6 =56)
    //And assign the ASCII values to DataToPrint
    CurrentChar = ((((int)s.charAt(i-1))-48)*10) + (((int)s.charAt(i))-48);
    if((CurrentChar < 95) && (CurrentChar  > 0))
      DataToPrint = DataToPrint + (char)(CurrentChar + 32);
    if( CurrentChar > 94 )
      DataToPrint = DataToPrint + (char)(CurrentChar + 100);
    if( CurrentChar == 0)
      DataToPrint = DataToPrint + (char)194;
    //multiply by the weighting character
    //add the values together to get the weighted total
    weightedTotal = weightedTotal + (CurrentChar * WeightValue);
    WeightValue = WeightValue + 1;
      }
    //divide the WeightedTotal by 103 and get the remainder,
    //this is the CheckDigitValue
    CheckDigitValue = weightedTotal % 103;
    if((CheckDigitValue < 95) && (CheckDigitValue > 0))
      C128_CheckDigit = (char)(CheckDigitValue + 32);
    if( CheckDigitValue > 94 )
      C128_CheckDigit = (char)(CheckDigitValue + 100);
    if( CheckDigitValue == 0 ){
      C128_CheckDigit = (char)194;
    }
    Printable_string = C128_Start + DataToPrint + C128_CheckDigit + C128_Stop + " ";
    Logger.log(Printable_string,5);
    return Printable_string;
  }
}

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Once the class is created and placed in the correct class path your template creators can start using it to format the data for barcodes. You will need to communicate to them the following:
1.    The class name and path. In this example: oracle.apps.xdo.template.rtf.util.barcoder.BarcodeUtil
2.    The barcode vendor id you created. In this example 噌MLPBarVendor?
3.    The available encoding methods, in this example, code128a, code128b and code128c
They can then use this information to sucessfully encode their data for barcode output.