Talk:European Article Number

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[edit] Conspiracy Theories

For fun and completeness the conspiracy theory may be mentioned, according to which some evil elite group of people (often referred to as illuminati) are the actual leaders of the world, and they are obsessed with putting secret signs on everything they control and own.

So it is true for every EAN-code, since it has an evil number 666 encoded in the separation/calibration character in the beginning, middle, and in the end. In fact, this character, the double line, encodes the six! However there is no reason to take the code for six for this purpose. The six has no sense in terms of binary encoding (like 2, 4, 8, etc.), and there is an eight which is also encoded as a symmetric double line, if the symmetry is a nessesary criterion for some reason.

[edit] EAN-13 Image

Unless someone disagrees I will be adding a correct EAN-13 image compliant with GS1 spec. (In particular it would include right quiet zone indicator and correct font OCR-B. I would also add printing considerations paragraph on the size of EAN-13 symbol.

Gs1mo 08:06, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] External links

I've added two links that are very useful for people that want to create their own codes, namely C routines for checksum calculation and the actual bit pattern (which in this format can't be found elsewhere on the net). Unfortunately someone keeps deleting those links. I'm reverting the page again. 17:34 BST 24. Oct. 2006

I deleted those links because I felt they were superfluous and failed to add any additional information not provided by the article. I do not feel that programming routines are useful information that someone on wikipedia might wish to know about. In addition, I believe the links are nothing more than a thinnly veiled advertisement of the site's barcode software. I do not wish to revert this article a third time myself, so I shall wait for someone else to give their opinion on the links. Links have also been added to the articles Code 128 and Code 39. --Millbrooky 16:47, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Given that the article actually discusses encoding a Code EAN, information on the bit pattern and the checksum calculation is vital to actually create a code (same goes for the Code 128 article). The pages where the links lead to have been deliberately stripped of any referral to the commercial content of the site, e.g. download links. Let's see what other users think. 18:23 BST 24. Oct. 2006

[edit] How to calculate the checksum in Ruby

I think this is information that would be good to have in the article for the programmers but don't know where to add it.

magic = 10
ean = "882224091442".split(/./)
times = [1,3] * 6
sum = 0
for i in 0.upto(12) do
  sum += ean[i].to_i * times[i]
end
checksum = (magic - (sum % magic)) % magic
 
if checksum 1..9
  return checksum
else
 return false
end

195.198.87.143 07:30, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Per WP:NOT, Wikipedia is not a how-to guide. This article is explaining what an EAN is and I don't believe that a code example is necessary to do that. Maybe some text might be added to make more precise how the checksum is defined, though. EdJohnston 01:39, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] EAN-13 Image... checksum digit

Are you sure the Ean13 example in the image is correct? In particular shouldn't the checksum be 2 rather than 5?

Unles I got something wrong these are my calculations:

2+0+3+2+1+8 = 16

0+1+0+5+1+7 = 14

16 + 3*14 = 58

60-58 = 2 <-- This is the checksum

82.184.99.34 12:31, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Yep, you're right. Don't know how to notify the creator though. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.187.21.244 (talk) 12:49, 28 October 2007 (UTC)