In the articles I have written about python scripts for Android I have always included an image that looks like a barcode but in 2 dimensions; this code is called a QR Code (Quick Response Barcode), and you can read more about it on wikipedia.

In the article on how to share scripts on Android there is a link to a page that generates the QR code from a given piece of information.

The idea is to create the code from Linux, and the program that does it is called qrencode.

To install it on Debian, simply run aptitude:

aptitude install qrencode

The command to generate a file with the QR code image is shown below:

qrencode -o output.png 'Hola mundo!'

This example generates a png file called output with the QR code for "Hola Mundo!"

There is also a python module that can generate the code directly; this package is called python-qrencode on Debian, and to install it you run aptitude:

aptitude install python-qrencode

The python-qrencode project page is on github at this link.

From this module the encode function will be used; you pass it a string as data and it returns a tuple with 3 values: the version, the image size and the image.

This image is an Image object, and it can be saved to a file.

The example code for using python-qrencode is shown below:

#!/usr/bin/env python


#modulo qrencode
from qrencode import encode

#El texto a convertir en codigo QR
texto = """Esta es uan prueba de generacion de codigo QR\n
desde python usando el modulo qrencode."""

#Se crea el codigo QR del texto,la funcion encode 
#genera una tupla donde el ultimo elemento es un
#objeto Imagen.

imagen = encode(texto)[2]

#Se salva la imagen en el archivo
#archivoprueba.png
imagen.save("/home/ernesto/archivoprueba.png")

===

Make a donation! If you liked the article you can make a donation with Bitcoin (BTC) using the digital wallet of your choice to the following address: 17MtNybhdkA9GV3UNS6BTwPcuhjXoPrSzV

Or by scanning the QR code from your wallet: