Barcodes in Informix Reports

Greg Wake wrote: >I know this is a popular question but until recently I have >not had the need to ask this question. >How can you insert barcodes into an Informix report?? <stuff deleted> Actually, I've never seen this asked before, and it stimulated me to try it. I was pleasantly surprised to discover how easy it is, even with my primitive version of SQL/ ACE. You can use the "ascii" function anywhere within an ace report to send control string to a printer e.g. print ascii 27 sends the escape character to the specified output. What I haven't seen documented before is the fact that you can use a field name as an argument to the ascii function, so not only can you use print <control string>,<barcode data>,<control string 2>,<data1>,<data2> ^ ^ |_barcode printing on |_barcode printing off but you can also store characters not accessible from the keyboard by storing their ascii values in the database, and print something like print <control string>,ascii <barcode data>,<control string 2>,<data1>, <data2>. Handy, isn't it? Thanks, Greg for a stimulating question. I can see an application for this already. ** Opinions expressed are my own and not necessarily those of my employer ========================================================================= Barry Toomey Phone +353-1-2822333 AT&T Network Systems Ireland Fax +353-1-2822864 Corke Abbey Avenue, email: bt@irl3b2c.att.comm Bray, uunet: att!irl3b2c!bt Co. Dublin Ireland =========================================================================