Perl Requires Chilkat v11.7.0+

QR Code with Non-English Text (UTF-8 and ECI)

See more QR Code Examples

Demonstrates text outside ASCII. QrCode always stores text as UTF-8 bytes, which is what phones expect. A QR code can also say so explicitly with an ECI header: setting encoding.eci to 26 declares the bytes to be UTF-8, for readers that would otherwise assume another character set. The header costs a little space, and a few older readers do not understand it, so it is off by default. Chilkat2 Perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use Chilkat2;

# This example requires the Chilkat API to have been previously unlocked.
# See Global Unlock Sample for sample code.

# The text is "Gruesse aus Muenchen" written with u-umlaut and sharp s.  It is given here with
# JSON escapes only so that this source is plain ASCII.  Decode turns the escapes into characters.
my $sbText = Chilkat2::StringBuilder->new;
$sbText->Append("Gr\x{FC}\x{DF}e aus M\x{FC}nchen");
$sbText->Decode('json', 'utf-8');

my $json = Chilkat2::JsonObject->new;
$json->UpdateSb('payload.text', $sbText);
$json->UpdateString('output.path', 'qa_output/qr_utf8.png');
$json->UpdateBool('output.overwrite', 1);
$json->UpdateString('output.return', 'none');

my $fmt = Chilkat2::Formats->new;
my $jsonOut = Chilkat2::JsonObject->new;
my $success = $fmt->QrCode('generate', $json, $jsonOut);
if (!$success) {
    print $fmt->LastErrorText, "\n";
    exit;
}

# 17 characters, three of which take two bytes in UTF-8.
print 'characters: ', $sbText->Length, "\n";
print 'bytes encoded: ', $jsonOut->IntOf('symbols[0].payloadBytes'), "\n";
print 'ECI header: ', ($jsonOut->HasMember('symbols[0].selectedEncoding.eci') ? 1 : 0), "\n";

# Without an ECI header (qa_output/qr_utf8.png):

# 

# The same text with an ECI header declaring UTF-8.
$json->UpdateInt('encoding.eci', 26);
$json->UpdateString('output.path', 'qa_output/qr_utf8_eci.png');
$success = $fmt->QrCode('generate', $json, $jsonOut);
if (!$success) {
    print $fmt->LastErrorText, "\n";
    exit;
}

print 'with encoding.eci = 26, ECI header: ', ($jsonOut->HasMember('symbols[0].selectedEncoding.eci') ? 1 : 0), ', value ', $jsonOut->IntOf('symbols[0].selectedEncoding.eci'), "\n";

# With the ECI header (qa_output/qr_utf8_eci.png).  Both scan as the same text:

# 

# Sample output:

# characters: 17
# bytes encoded: 20
# ECI header: False
# with encoding.eci = 26, ECI header: True, value 26