The MSI barcode, which also goes by the name of the Modified Plessey barcode is mainly used for inventory control in places such as warehouses.

MSI Barcode

MSI Barcode


This barcode format can encode any number of digits, and is ended by a checksum digit.

the checksum digit can be calculated using one of several methods.

Using the Modulo 10 method, moving through the string in reverse, you double the value of every second digit, starting at the rightmost digit, and then add the digits together. We then take a modulo 10 of this number, subtract it from 10. This then gives the checksum digit.

For the Modulo 11 method, you need to reverse the digit string first, and then apply a weighting to each digit. There are two ways to work out the weighting. The “IBM” method assigns a weighting of 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 to successive digits, whereas the “NCR” method assigns a weighting of 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 to each successive digit. Then, taking the weighted sum, the parity is found by taking the modulo 11 of this sum, and subtracting from 11.

The remaining two methods, Modulo 1011 and Modulo 1110, first applies the one method and then the other.

Now that we have the full string with the parity digit, we can encode.

The left guard of the barcode is 110 and the right guard 1001.

There is only one encoding per digit, which makes encoding rather easy.

0 100100100100
1 100100100110
2 100100110100
3 100100110110
4 100110100100
5 100110100110
6 100110110100
7 100110110110
8 110100100100
9 110100100110


Here is the code to encode the barcode. The full source code is available here

namespace BarcoderLib
{
    public class BarcodeMSI
    {
        private string gLeftGuard = "110";
        private string gRightGuard = "1001";
        private string[] gCoding = {  "100100100100", "100100100110", "100100110100", "100100110110", "100110100100", 
                                      "100110100110", "100110110100", "100110110110", "110100100100", "110100100110"};


        public Bitmap Encode(string message, string modulo, string weightType)
        {
            string encodedMessage;
            string fullMessage;

            Bitmap barcodeImage = new Bitmap(250, 100);
            Graphics g = Graphics.FromImage(barcodeImage);


            Validate(message);
            fullMessage = message;
            switch (modulo)
            {
                case "Modulo 10":
                    fullMessage = message + CalcParity10(message).ToString().Trim();
                    break;
                case "Modulo 11":
                    fullMessage = message + CalcParity11(message, weightType).ToString().Trim();
                    break;
                case "Modulo 1011":
                    fullMessage = message + CalcParity10(message).ToString().Trim();
                    fullMessage = fullMessage + CalcParity11(fullMessage, weightType).ToString().Trim();
                    break;
                case "Modulo 1110":
                    fullMessage = message + CalcParity11(message, weightType).ToString().Trim();
                    fullMessage = fullMessage + CalcParity10(fullMessage).ToString().Trim();
                    break;
            }
            encodedMessage = EncodeBarcode(fullMessage);

            PrintBarcode(g, encodedMessage, fullMessage, 250, 100);

            return barcodeImage;
        }
        private void Validate(string message)
        {

            Regex reNum = new Regex(@"^\d+$");
            if (reNum.Match(message).Success == false)
            {
                throw new Exception("Encode string must be numeric");
            }
        }

        private void PrintBarcode(Graphics g, string encodedMessage, string message, int width, int height)
        {
            SolidBrush whiteBrush = new SolidBrush(Color.White);
            SolidBrush blackBrush = new SolidBrush(Color.Black);
            Font textFont = new Font(FontFamily.GenericMonospace, 10, FontStyle.Regular);
            g.FillRectangle(whiteBrush, 0, 0, width, height);

            int xPos = 20;
            int yTop = 10;
            int barHeight = 50;

            for (int i = 0; i < encodedMessage.Length; i++)
            {
                if (encodedMessage[i] == '1')
                {
                    g.FillRectangle(blackBrush, xPos, yTop, 1, barHeight);
                }
                xPos += 1;
            }

            xPos = 20;
            yTop += barHeight - 2;
            for (int i = 0; i < message.Length; i++)
            {
                g.DrawString(message[i].ToString().Trim(), textFont, blackBrush, xPos, yTop);
                xPos += 7;
            }

        }

        private string EncodeBarcode(string message)
        {
            int i;
            string encodedString = gLeftGuard;

            for (i = 0; i < message.Length; i++)
            {
                encodedString += gCoding[Convert.ToInt32(message[i].ToString())];
            }
            encodedString += gRightGuard;

            return encodedString;
        }

        private int CalcParity10(string message)
        {
            long sum = 0;
            int parity = 0;
            string shortStringA = "";
            string shortStringB = "";

            for (int i = message.Length - 1; i >= 0; i--)
            {
                if (((message.Length - 1 - i) % 2) == 1)
                {
                    shortStringA += message[i].ToString().Trim();
                }
                else
                {
                    shortStringB += message[i].ToString().Trim();
                }
            }
            string tmp = "";
            for (int i = shortStringB.Length - 1; i >= 0; i--)
            {
                tmp += shortStringB[i];
            }
            shortStringB = tmp;

            tmp = "";
            for (int i = shortStringA.Length - 1; i >= 0; i--)
            {
                tmp += shortStringA[i];
            }
            shortStringA = tmp;

            long mult = 2 * Convert.ToInt64(shortStringA);
            
            for (int i = 0; i < shortStringB.Length; i++)
            {
                sum += Convert.ToInt32(shortStringB[i]);
            }
        
            sum += mult;

            parity = Convert.ToInt32(10 - (sum % 10));
            if (parity == 10)
            {
                parity = 0;
            }
            return parity;


         }

        private int CalcParity11(string message, string weightType)
        {
            int weightMax = 0;
            int sum = 0;
            int parity;

            if(weightType == "IBM")
            {
                weightMax = 7;
            }
            else{
                weightMax = 9;
            }
            int weight = 2;
                    
            for (int i = message.Length - 1; i >= 0; i--)
            {
                sum += Convert.ToInt32(message[i].ToString()) * weight;
                weight++;
                if (weight > weightMax)
                {
                    weight = 2;
                }
            }

            parity = 11 - (sum % 11);
            parity = parity % 11;

            return parity;
        }
    }
}

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