Han Xin code

Han Xin Code version 22

Han Xin code (汉信码 in Chinese, Chinese-sensible code) is two-dimensional (2D) matrix barcode symbology invented in 2007 by Chinese company The Article Numbering Center of China (中国物品编码中心 in Chinese) to break the monopoly of QR code. As a QR code, Han Xin code consists of black squares and white square spaces arranged in a square grid on a white background. It has four finder patterns and other markers which allow to recognize it with camera-based readers. Han Xin code contains Reed–Solomon error correction with ability to read corrupted images. At this time, it is issued as ISO/IEC 20830:2021.

The main advantage (and invention requirement), comparable to QR code, is an embedded ability to natively encode Chinese characters instead of Japanese in QR code. Han Xin code in maximal 84 version (189×189 size) allows to encode 7827 numeric characters, 4350 English text characters, 3261 bytes and 1044–2174 Chinese characters (it depends on Unicode region). Han Xin code encodes full ISO/IEC 646 Latin characters instead of restricted amount Latin characters which is supported by QR code. It makes Han Xin code more suitable for English text encoding or GS1 Application Identifiers data encoding.

Additionally, Han Xin code can encode Unicode characters from other languages with special Unicode mode, which has embedded lossless compression for UTF-8 characters set and Extended Channel Interpretation support. Han Xin code has special mode for [[Uniform Resource Identi Time

History and standards

Chinese company The Article Numbering Center of China (中国物品编码中心 in Chinese) during 10-th Five-year plans of China started research of own QR code replacement to remove Japanese monopoly in 2D barcodes. In 2007, the new barcodes standard, at this time known as Han Xin code, published as GB/T 21049-2007 with the name Chinese-sensible code.

In 2011, USA company Association for Automatic Identification and Mobility (AIM) brought out ISS Han Xin Code symbology as official encoding standard and published it in the own store.

In 2015, group of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 31 started implementation of Han Xin code as international standard and published it as ISO/IEC 20830:2021 in 2021.

In 2022 Chinese-sensible code standard was reviewed as GB/T 21049-2022 and renamed as Han Xin code to be compliant with ISO standard.

Set of patents is registered in United States Patent and Trademark Office related with Han Xin code encoding and decoding:

• European Patent Office EP3330887B1 by Fujian Landi Commercial Equipment Co Ltd "Chinese-sensitive code feature pattern detection method and system"
• United States Patent US10095903B2 by Ingenico Fujian Technology Co Ltd "Block decoding method and system for two-dimensional code"
• United States Patent US10528781B2 by Ingenico Fujian Technology Co Ltd "Detection method and system for characteristic patterns of Han Xin codes"

Application

Han Xin code can be used in the same way as QR code. At this time Han Xin code is used mostly in China, because it has embedded encoding ability to encode Chinese characters. However, most of barcode printers and barcode scanners support Han Xin code. Han Xin code can be scanned on iOS and Android mobile devices and many barcode libraries support reading and writing Han Xin code.

Main advantages of Han Xin code are:

• ability to encode Chinese characters with embedded methods;
• Extended Channel Interpretation support;
• embedded method for compact UTF-8 encoding with embedded lossless compression;
• embedded method for URI compact encoding;
• compact GS1 Application Identifiers data encoding comparable to QR code;
• full ISO/IEC 646 support for compact numeric and text encoding.

Barcode design

Barcode structure of Han Xin Code

Han Xin code represents data in black and white square modules, where dark module is a binary one and a light module is a zero. Additionally, Han Xin code can be encoded in inverse colors, but this option in many barcode readers is disabled by default. Black and white modules are arranged into square region with sizes from 23 × 23 modules (Version 1) to 189 × 189 modules (Version 84). As QR code, Han Xin code does not have rectangular versions like DataMatrix has and this restricts usage of Han Xin code in some cases. Han Xin code version size can be calculated with the following formula:
$Size=23+(Version-1)*2$

Han Xin code symbol is constructed from the following elements:

• Quiet Zone – is surrounding the symbol on all four sides with at least 3X size;
• Finder Pattern – consists from 4 Position Detection Patterns which is placed on all four corners of symbol and used to detect symbol position and area;
• Alignment Patterns and Assistant Alignment Patterns – is started from Version 4 and helps with the decoding of distorted code;
• Structural Information Regions – is surrounding all four Finder Patterns and used to encode symbol parameters like version, mask and error correction mode;
• Data Regions – masked binary data encoded in black and white modules.

Finder pattern

Han Xin Code finder pattern

Finder Pattern consists from four Position Detection Patterns located at the four corners of the barcode. The size of Position Detection Pattern is 7×7 modules and it is constructed from 5 elements: dark 7 × 7 modules, light 6 × 6 modules, dark 5 × 5 modules, light 4 × 4 modules, dark 3 × 3 modules respectively.

The scanning ratio of each Position Detection Pattern is 1:1:1:1:3 or 3:1:1:1:1 (depends on scanning direction). The four patterns orientation allows to detect unambiguously the barcode location and orientation.

Every pattern has Position Detection Pattern separator with Structural Information Region aligned to it.

Alignment pattern

The Alignment Patterns are added to the Han Xin code from Version 4 (Versions 1–3 do not have alignment patterns) and used to precise cell position in the distorted barcodes. Alignment Patterns in Han Xin code are split into:

• Alignment Pattern – set of step-wise alignment lines;
• Assistant Alignment Pattern - 6 modules, including 5 light modules and 1 dark module.

The Alignment Pattern is made up of a dark line and a downside adjacent light line which are one module wide. Assistant Alignment Pattern consisting from 5 light modules and 1 dark module indicates edge of region block with its dark module.

Below you can see examples of Han Xin code with different Alignment pattern placement.

• 
  Han Xin Code version 1
• 
  Han Xin Code version 4
• 
  Han Xin Code version 22
• 
  Han Xin Code version 84

Structural information

Structural information placement of Han Xin Code

Han Xin code Structural Information Region is a one module wide region surrounding the four Position Detection Patterns. Han Xin code has two Structural Information identical arrays, which are made from 34 data modules. Every Structural Information array is split on 17 modules which are placed around each Position Detection Pattern.

Structural Information Region encodes the following data:

• Version + 20 (bits 0–7);
• Error correction level (bits 8–9);
• Mask index (bits 10–11);
• Error correction Reed–Solomon error correction data (bits 12–27);
• Bits 28–33 are ignored and can be any (sometimes they can be filled with white, black sequence).

Metadata bits from 0–11 are split into 4 bits tetrads(m2, m1, m0) and supplemented with four error correction tetrads (r3, r2, r1, r0).

Han Xin Code Structural information bits

Version + 20								Error correction level		Mask index		Error correction codewords
m2				m1				m0				r3				r2				r1				r0
X0	X1	X2	X3	X4	X5	X6	X7	X8	X9	X10	X11	X12	X13	X14	X15	X16	X17	X18	X19	X20	X21	X22	X23	X24	X25	X26	X27

Data masking

To make Han Xin code dark and light modules amount to be closely to 1:1 in the symbol, masking algorithm is used. Masking sequence is applied to Data Region through the XOR operation. Finder Pattern, Alignment Patterns and Structural Information Regions are excluded from masking operation. The following table shows mask pattern algorithms (which is placed to Structural Information Region).

Han Xin Code masking pattern algorithm

Condition of masking solution	Data mask pattern reference
Non-masking	00
(i+j) mod 2=0	01
((i+j)mod 3+( j mod 3)) mod 2=0	10
(i mod j +j mod i + i mod 3+ j mod 3) mod 2=0	11

i - Row index of the symbol.
j - Column index of the symbol.
Both i and j start from (1,1), the top left corner module of the symbol. When the masking solution condition is true, the resulting mask bit is 1.

Error correction

Han Xin code uses Reed–Solomon error correction. Encoded data is represented as byte (8-bit) array. Data array divided into blocks and error correction codewords sequence is generated for each block which is added to the end of the error correction block. After this, all blocks are merged sequentially into byte stream.

The polynomial arithmetic for Han Xin Code uses finite field generation polynomial: x^8 + x^6 + x^5 + x (355 or 101100011b) with initial root = 1.

The amount of error correction codewords depends on symbol version and error correction level and can be from 16% to 60%, which allows to correct from 8% to 30% damage.

Han Xin Code error correction levels features

Error correction level	Recovery capacity % (approximation)	Encoding of error correction level
L1	8%	00
L2	15%	01
L3	23%	10
L4	30%	11

Data region

Han Xin code data is encoded as byte array. Data byte array is split into error correction blocks, where error correction codewords (bytes) are added. Error correction blocks are united into one codewords array:

(Encoded byte array) => (Error correction block 1) + ... + (Error correction block N) => (Codewords array)

As an example, this can be demonstrated on Han Xin code version 5 with error correction level L4. It has 27 encoded codewords and 2 error correction blocks with each block size of data codewords and error correction codewords: (14, 20), (13, 22):

(D1...D14, D15...D27) => (D1...D14, E1.1...1.20) + (D15...D27, E2.1...2.22) => (D1...D14, E1.1...1.20, D15...D27, E2.1...2.22) => (C1...C69)
D(x) - Data codewords.
E(b.x) - error codeword, where b is block number and x position in block.
C(x) - resulted codewords.

As the next operation, resulted codewords array C(x) is split into blocks with size of 13 bytes which connects codewords in the same position of each block and form new codewords array. The result is byte array of the same size but mixed by position of 13.

(С1...С13, С14...С26, Сn...Cn+12) => (С1, C14, Cn...С13, С26, Cn+12) => (CM1...CMn+12)
CM(x) – mixed by position of 13 array of codewords (bytes).

After the upper operations the resulted codewords are placed into data region row by row from left to right and from up to down. Horizontal line damage would affect fewer codewords, vertical line damage would affect more codewords.

Encoding

Han Xin code can encode 7827 numeric characters, 4350 English text characters, 3261 bytes and 1044–2174 Chinese characters in the maximal version 84 version. Additionally, it supports special Unicode and industrial modes. All modes can be mixed to obtain best compactification level for the data. The following table demonstrates abilities to encode data with different barcode version and error correction level.

Han Xin Code versions and information capacity

Version	Size	Error correction level	Data codewords	Error correction codewords	Numeric	Text	Bytes	Chinese characters
1	23×23	L1	21	4	45	26	18	6–12
		L4	9	16	15	10	6	2–4
...
22	65×65	L1	354	68	843	470	351	113–234
		L4	168	254	399	222	165	53–110
...
84	189×189	L1	3264	622	7827	4350	3261	1044–2174
		L4	1554	2332	3723	2070	1551	497–1034

Encoding modes

All encoding modes can be split into the following groups:

• Numeric mode which includes digits encoding: 0–9;
• Text mode which supports full ISO/IEC 646 characters set;
• Binary (Byte) mode which encodes bytes values 0–255;
• Chinese Characters modes which encodes 1587600 different Chinese characters from GB 18030 codepage in 4 modes;
• Unicode encoding with Extended Channel Interpretation(ECI) mode;
• Unicode with Unicode adaptive mode which encodes UTF-8 encoding with embedded lossless compression;
• GS1 mode which encodes GS1 Application Identifiers data;
• URI mode which encodes URI links in compact encoding.

Han Xin Code mode characteristics

Mode	Mode indicators	Bits per character
Numeric	0001b	3.3 (10 bits for three digits)
Text	0010b	6
Binary Byte	0011b	8
Common Chinese Characters in Region One	0100b	12
Common Chinese Characters in Region Two	0101b	12
GB18030 2-byte Region	0110b	15
GB18030 4-byte Region	0111b	21
ECI	1000b	Variable (multi-bytes mode)
Unicode	1001b	Adaptive (lossless compression)
GS1	11100001b	Variable (Numeric + Text modes)
URI	11100010b	Variable (2–7 bits per character)

Numeric mode

The input data string in Numeric mode is divided into blocks of three digits (the last block can be less than three) and encoded in 10 bits (0000000000b - 1111100111b). The mode data is prefixed with mode indicator 0001b and terminates with mode terminator which also indicates number of digits in last group.

Han Xin Code numeric mode terminators

Numeric characters in last group	Mode terminator
1	1111111101b
2	1111111110b
3	1111111111b

As an example, we need to encode digits sequence 12700402:
Prefix => 0001b
127 => 0001111111
004 => 0000000100
02 => 0000000010
Terminator => 1111111110b

Text mode

Text mode encodes data characters set from ISO/IEC 646. Each character is represented by 6 bits. All characters are divided into two subsets: Text1 sub-mode and Text2 sub-mode. 11110b value is used to switch between text sub-modes, 111111b is a mode terminator. Text mode starts from Text1 sub-mode.

Han Xin Code Text1 sub-mode

Character	ASCII value	Encoding value	Character	ASCII value	Encoding value	Character	ASCII value	Encoding value
0	48	000000b	L	76	010101b	g	103	101010b
1	49	000001b	M	77	010110b	h	104	101011b
2	50	000010b	N	78	010111b	i	105	101100b
3	51	000011b	O	79	011000b	j	106	101101b
4	52	000100b	P	80	011001b	k	107	101110b
5	53	000101b	Q	81	011010b	l	108	101111b
6	54	000110b	R	82	011011b	m	109	110000b
7	55	000111b	S	83	011100b	n	110	110001b
8	56	001000b	T	84	011101b	o	111	110010b
9	57	001001b	U	85	011110b	p	112	110011b
A	65	001010b	V	86	011111b	q	113	110100b
B	66	001011b	W	87	100000b	r	114	110101b
C	67	001100b	X	88	100001b	s	115	110110b
D	68	001101b	Y	89	100010b	t	116	110111b
E	69	001110b	Z	90	100011b	u	117	111000b
F	70	001111b	a	97	100100b	v	118	111001b
G	71	010000b	b	98	100101b	w	119	111010b
H	72	010001b	c	99	100110b	x	120	111011b
I	73	010010b	d	100	100111b	y	121	111100b
J	74	010011b	e	101	101000b	z	122	111101b
K	75	010100b	f	102	101001b

Han Xin Code Text2 sub-mode

Character	ASCII value	Encoding value	Character	ASCII value	Encoding value	Character	ASCII value	Encoding value
NUL	0	000000b	NAK	21	010101b	.	46	101010b
SOH	1	000001b	SYN	22	010110b	/	47	101011b
STX	2	000010b	ETB	23	010111b	:	58	101100b
ETX	3	000011b	CAN	24	011000b	;	59	101101b
EOT	4	000100b	EM	25	011001b	<	60	101110b
ENQ	5	000101b	SUB	26	011010b	=	61	101111b
ACK	6	000110b	ESC	27	011011b	>	62	110000b
BEL	7	000111b	SP	32	011100b	?	63	110001b
BS	8	001000b	!	33	011101b	@	64	110010b
HT	9	001001b	”	34	011110b	[	91	110011b
LF	10	001010b	#	35	011111b	\	92	110100b
VT	11	001011b	$	36	100000b	]	93	110101b
FF	12	001100b	%	37	100001b	^	94	110110b
CR	13	001101b	&	38	100010b	_	95	110111b
SO	14	001110b	‘	39	100011b	`	96	111000b
SI	15	001111b	(	40	100100b	{	123	111001b
DLE	16	010000b	)	41	100101b	|	124	111010b
DC1	17	010001b	*	42	100110b	}	125	111011b
DC2	18	010010b	+	43	100111b	~	126	111100b
DC3	19	010011b	,	44	101000b	DEL	27	111101b
DC4	20	010100b	-	45	101001b

Binary byte mode

Binary mode encodes bytes array [0 – 255] in any form. Binary mode consists from binary mode indicator 0011b, 13-bit binary counter and bytes data which are converted to 8-bit sequence. None mode terminator is required.

Chinese Characters modes

Chinese Characters modes is a set of 4 modes which encodes Chinese characters from GB 18030 codepage.

Han Xin Code Chinese Characters modes

Mode	Mode indicator	Bits	Encoding characters count	Description
Common Chinese Characters in Region One mode	0100b	12	4074	Encodes characters from GB 18030 regions, which: first byte value is in the range of B0 to D7 and second byte value is in the range of A1 to FE (3760 characters), first byte value is in the range of A1 to A3 and second byte value is in the range of A1 to FE (282 characters), in the range of A8A1 to A8C0 (32 characters).
Common Chinese Characters in Region Two mode	0101b	12	3008	Encodes characters from GB 18030 region, which first byte value is in the range of D8 to F7 and second byte value is in the range of A1 to FE (3008 characters).
GB18030 2-byte Region mode	0110b	15	23940	Encodes characters from GB 18030 region, which first byte value is in the range of 81 to FE and second byte value is in the range of 40 to 7E or 80 to FE (23940 characters).
GB18030 4-byte Region mode	0111b	21	1587600	Encodes characters from GB 18030 region, which first byte value is in the range of 81 to FE, and second byte value is in the range of 30 to 39, and third byte value is in the range of 81 to FE, and fourth byte value is in the range of 30 to 39 (1587600 characters).

Unicode mode

Unicode mode encodes UTF-8 charset with embedded lossless compression. In the Unicode mode, the input data is analysed by using self-adaptive algorithm. Firstly, input data is divided and combined into the 1, 2, 3, or 4 byte pattern preencoding sub-sequences, and secondly a run-length data compression algorithm is applied to encode each sub-sequences of the input data.

Shortly, the Unicode mode searches characters sub-pages which can have the same prefix sequence for all of characters of the same language (Cyrillic, Greek, French, German... languages) and encodes only differences from prefix bytes sequence.

GS1 mode

Han Xin code GS1 mode is an indicator that the represented data is defined by GS1 General Specification. GS1 mode encodes data in Numeric and Text modes. Other modes may be used but GS1 mode must be first mode in the symbol and encoded data must be returned with GS1 flag. <FNC1> (if required) must be encoded as 1111101000b in Numeric mode (Numeric mode encodes only three digits, so 1111101000b => 1000 value is counted as special character). In case <FNC1> identifier must be inserted and encoder is in any mode different from Numeric, the mode must be terminated and Numeric mode must be started. GS1 mode indicator is 11100001b and GS1 mode terminator is 11111111b.

The data in GS1 mode is split into GS1 Application Identifiers chinks and then compacted with the best modes. As an example, the following data can be encoded:
(10)123456ABC<FNC1>(240)DATA

The data is encoded in the following way:
<11100001b> <Numeric 10123456> <Text ABC> <Numeric mode selector> <1111101000b> <Numeric 240> <Text DATA> <11111111b>

URI mode

Han Xin code URI mode encodes URI links in compact encoding. URI mode indicator is 11100010b and URI mode terminator is 111b. URI mode can encode data in three charsets: URI-A, URI-B, URI-C with own sub-mode terminators. URI mode can encode %XX data in special Percent-Encoding sub-mode, where three symbols is encoded in 8 bits.

Han Xin Code URI submodes

Charset	Charset indicator
URI-A	001b
URI-B	010b
URI-C	011b
Percent-Encoding	100b
URI Mode Teminator	111b

Percent-Encoding sub-mode encodes %XX data in 8 bits sequence. The mode does not require any terminator. To encode URI %XX data in this mode, sub-mode indicator (100b) must be added, then 8-bit indicator of sub-mode 8 bits sequence must be added (counter = Length of %XX / 3) and after this sequence, where %FF, or %ff, or %00, must be added as xFF or x00 bytes.

Han Xin Code URI-A and URI-B charsets

URI-A charset			URI-B charset
Character / URI fragment	Encoding value	Encoding bits	Character / URI fragment	Encoding value	Encoding bits
a	0	000000	A	0	000000
b	1	000001	B	1	000001
c	2	000010	C	2	000010
d	3	000011	D	3	000011
e	4	000100	E	4	000100
f	5	000101	F	5	000101
g	6	000110	G	6	000110
h	7	000111	H	7	000111
i	8	001000	I	8	001000
j	9	001001	J	9	001001
k	10	001010	K	10	001010
l	11	001011	L	11	001011
m	12	001100	M	12	001100
n	13	001101	N	13	001101
o	14	001110	O	14	001110
p	15	001111	P	15	001111
q	16	010000	Q	16	010000
r	17	010001	R	17	010001
s	18	010010	S	18	010010
t	19	010011	T	19	010011
u	20	010100	U	20	010100
v	21	010101	V	21	010101
w	22	010110	W	22	010110
x	23	010111	X	23	010111
y	24	011000	Y	24	011000
z	25	011001	Z	25	011001
0	26	011010	!	26	011010
1	27	011011	*	27	011011
2	28	011100	(	28	011100
3	29	011101	)	29	011101
4	30	011110	,	30	011110
5	31	011111	{	31	011111
6	32	100000	}	32	100000
7	33	100001	|	33	100001
8	34	100010	\	34	100010
9	35	100011	^	35	100011
.	36	100100	[	36	100100
/	37	100101	]	37	100101
-	38	100110	'	38	100110
_	39	100111	<	39	100111
~	40	101000	>	40	101000
:	41	101001	%	41	101001
@	42	101010	"	42	101010
?	43	101011	;	43	101011
#	44	101100	.htm	44	101100
=	45	101101	.html	45	101101
+	46	101110	.asp	46	101110
$	47	101111	.aspx	47	101111
&	48	110000	.php	48	110000
http://	49	110001	.jsp	49	110001
https://	50	110010	gtin	50	110010
ftp://	51	110011	ser	51	110011
mailto:	52	110100	bat	52	110100
ldap://	53	110101	exp	53	110101
tel:	54	110110	search	54	110110
urn:	55	110111	id	55	110111
www.	56	111000	.jp	56	111000
.com	57	111001	.it	57	111001
.net	58	111010	.de	58	111010
.gov	59	111011	.br	59	111011
.org	60	111100	.fr	60	111100
.cn	61	111101	gs1	61	111101
Jump to URI-B	62	111110	Jump to URI-A	62	111110
Terminator of URI-A	63	111111	Terminator of URI-B	63	111111

Han Xin Code URI-C charset

Character / URI fragment	Encoding value	Encoding bits	Character / URI fragment	Encoding value	Encoding bits	Character / URI fragment	Encoding value	Encoding bits
A	0	0000000	R	43	0101011	;	86	1010110
B	1	0000001	S	44	0101100	/	87	1010111
C	2	0000010	T	45	0101101	?	88	1011000
D	3	0000011	U	46	0101110	:	89	1011001
E	4	0000100	V	47	0101111	@	90	1011010
F	5	0000101	W	48	0110000	&	91	1011011
G	6	0000110	X	49	0110001	=	92	1011100
H	7	0000111	Y	50	0110010	http://	93	1011101
I	8	0001000	Z	51	0110011	https://	94	1011110
J	9	0001001	0	52	0110100	ftp://	95	1011111
K	10	0001010	1	53	0110101	mailto:	96	1100000
L	11	0001011	2	54	0110110	ldap://	97	1100001
m	12	0001100	3	55	0110111	tel:	98	1100010
N	13	0001101	4	56	0111000	urn:	99	1100011
O	14	0001110	5	57	0111001	www.	100	1100100
P	15	0001111	6	58	0111010	.com	101	1100101
Q	16	0010000	7	59	0111011	.net	102	1100110
R	17	0010001	8	60	0111100	.gov	103	1100111
S	18	0010010	9	61	0111101	.org	104	1101000
T	19	0010011	$	62	0111110	.cn	105	1101001
U	20	0010100	-	63	0111111	.htm	106	1101010
V	21	0010101	_	64	1000000	.html	107	1101011
w	22	0010110	.	65	1000001	.asp	108	1101100
X	23	0010111	+	66	1000010	.aspx	109	1101101
Y	24	0011000	!	67	1000011	.php	110	1101110
Z	25	0011001	*	68	1000100	.jsp	111	1101111
A	26	0011010	(	69	1000101	gtin	112	1110000
B	27	0011011	)	70	1000110	ser	113	1110001
C	28	0011100	,	71	1000111	bat	114	1110010
D	29	0011101	{	72	1001000	exp	115	1110011
E	30	0011110	}	73	1001001	search	116	1110100
F	31	0011111	|	74	1001010	id	117	1110101
G	32	0100000	\	75	1001011	.jp	118	1110110
H	33	0100001	^	76	1001100	.it	119	1110111
I	34	0100010	~	77	1001101	.de	120	1111000
J	35	0100011	[	78	1001110	.br	121	1111001
K	36	0100100	]	79	1001111	.fr	122	1111010
L	37	0100101	'	80	1010000	gs1	123	1111011
M	38	0100110	<	81	1010001	search	124	1111100
N	39	0100111	>	82	1010010	Jump to URI-A	125	1111101
O	40	0101000	#	83	1010011	Jump to URI-B	126	1111110
P	41	0101001	%	84	1010100	Terminator of URI-C	127	1111111
Q	42	0101010	"	85	1010101

See also

• Automated identification and data capture (AIDC)
• Barcode
• Extended Channel Interpretation
• GB National Standard
• GS1
• QR code

External links

• Free Han Xin code generator
• Free Han Xin code reader
• Han Xin code description