Process for scanning a bar code

A process for scanning a bar code, said code comprising two synchronism characters, one of the synchronism characters being a character of start and the other one a character of stop, and a plurality of useful characters in-between the character of start and the character of stop, each character comprising a plurality of a bar-and-space elements, the process comprising the steps of:

• a) acquisition of a first bar code scanning alone a scanning line,
• b) identification of a belonging family of the bar code,
• c) determination of a width of at least one of the synchronism characters,
• d) calculation of an estimated width of each character of the code being examined, based on the width of the at least one of the synchronism characters considered,
• e) identification, by way of a first approximation, of a character following one of the synchronism characters by counting a number of m elements equal to a number of elements that make up each character in the belonging family,
• f) determination of a potential width of said following character,
• g) checking whether the potential width of said following character differs from the estimated width of a lower quantity with respect to a prefixed tolerance, and:
• g1) if said check gives a positive result, identification of said following character as a “decodable character”, and reiteration, for each character following the decodable character, of steps e) through g), until the other synchronism character has been reached,
• g2) if said check gives a negative result, labeling of said following character as an “undecodable character”,
• wherein if the check of step g) gives a positive result, the decoding of the decodable character is tried before reiterating steps e) through g) for the following characters, and
• if said decoding gives a positive result:
• storing of the decoded character in a decoding string intended for containing a first set of hypothetical values of the code characters,
• updating of the estimated width of the character of the code being examined depending on the decoded character,
• if said decoding gives a negative result:
• identification of said character as an “undecodable character”, and reiteration of steps e) through g) for each following character.

A process for scanning a bar code, said code comprising two synchronism characters, one of the synchronism characters being a character of start and the other one a character of stop, and a plurality of useful characters in-between the character of start and the character of stop, each character comprising a plurality of a bar-and-space elements, the process comprising the steps of:

• a) acquisition of a first bar code scanning along a scanning line,
• b) identification of a belonging family of the bar code,
• c) determination of a width of at least one of the synchronism characters,
• d) calculation of an estimated width of each character of the code being examined, based on the width of the at least one of the synchronism characters considered,
• e) identification, by way of a first approximation, of a character following one of the synchronism characters by counting a number of m elements equal to a number of elements that make up each character in the belonging family
• f) determination of a potential width of said following character,
• g) checking whether the potential width of said following character differs from the estimated width of a lower quantity with respect to a prefixed tolerance, and:
• g1) if said check gives a positive result, identification of said following character as a “decodable character”, and reiteration, for each character following the decodable character, of steps e) through g), until the other synchronism character has been reached,
• g2) if said check gives a negative result, labeling of said following character as an “undecodable character”,
• wherein, if the check of step g) gives a negative result, the following steps are carried out:
• h) identification, by way of second approximation, of the character following one of the synchronism characters, by counting a number of elements equal to m±2,
• i) determination of a new potential width of such following character as identified by way of second approximation,
• l) check if said new potential width differs from the estimated width of a lower quantity with respect to the prefixed tolerance, and:
• l1) if such check gives a positive result, identification of such following character as identified by way of second approximation as being an “undecodable character”, and reiteration, for each character following the identified character, of steps e) through g) until the other synchronism character has been reached,
• l2) if such check gives a negative result, reiteration, for a p number of times, of the operations h) through l), adding to or removing each time two further elements from the previously counted number of elements.

A process for the combination of a partly or entirely decoded first string with at least a second string, in order to process a complete decoding string, comprising the following steps:

• scanning a bar code, said code comprising two synchronism characters, one of the synchronism characters being a character of start and the other one a character of stop, and a plurality of useful characters in-between the character of start and the character of stop, each character comprising a plurality of a bar-and-space elements, the scanning comprising the steps of:
• a) acquisition of a first bar code scanning along a scanning line,
• b) identification of a belonging family of the bar code,
• c) determination of a width of at least one of the synchronism characters,
• d) calculation of an estimated width of each character of the code being examined, based on the width of the at least one of the synchronism characters considered,
• e) identification, by way of a first approximation, of a character following one of the synchronism characters by counting a number of m elements equal to a number of elements that make up each character in the belonging family,
• f) determination of a potential width of said following character,
• g) checking whether the potential width of said following character differs from the estimated width of a lower quantity with respect to a prefixed tolerance, and:
• g1) if said check gives a positive result, identification of said following character as a “decodable character”, and reiteration, for each character following the decodable character, of steps e) through g), until the other synchronism character has been reached,
• g2) if said check gives a negative result, labeling of said following character as an “undecodable character”,
• 18a) providing of a partly or entirely decoded first data string, comprising a plurality of decoded characters and an error coefficient associated to each decoded character,
• 18b) storing of said first string in a buffer A,
• 18c) updating with said first string of a buffer B, intended for containing consolidated data,
• 18d) storing of a second string in buffer A,
• 18e) updating of buffer with said second string,
• 18f) if buffer B contains a complete string of entirely decoded characters, performing of a validation try of said complete string,
• 18g) if the validation try gives a positive result, causing the decoded string to become available,
• 18h) if the validation try gives a negative result, acquisition of a third string and reiteration of steps 18d) through 18f).