1 Comment for what information is stored in universal product code?

• 1. Kansai Teacher  |  February 15th, 2011 at 9:00 am

  A valid barcode should show you exactly what the product is, how much it weighs, its unit cost, and whether it’s as drug or a coupon.
  See the summary below and check the link for more info.

  “The Universal Product Code (U.P.C.) is one of a wide variety of bar code languages called symbologies. The U.P.C. encodes twelve decimal digits as SLLLLLLMRRRRRRE, where S (start) and E (end) are the bit pattern 101, M (middle) is the bit pattern 01010 (called guard bars), and each L (left) and R (right) are digits, each represented by a seven-bit code.
  1] 0, 1, 6, 7, 8, or 9 for most products
  2] 2 reserved for local use (store/warehouse), for items sold by variable weight. Variable-weight items, such as meats and fresh fruits and vegetables, are assigned a U.P.C. by the store if they are packaged there. In this case, the LLLLL is the item number, and the _RRRR is either the weight or the price, with the first R determining which.
  3] 3 drugs by National Drug Code number. Pharmaceuticals in the U.S. have the remainder of the UPC as their National Drug Code (NDC) number; though usually only over-the-counter drugs are scanned at point-of-sale, NDC-based U.P.C.s are used on prescription drug packages as well for inventory purposes.
  4] 4 reserved for local use (store/warehouse), often for loyalty cards
  5] 5 coupons, though many stores ignore this and use others.”

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