Saturday, October 15, 2011

Generating QR code by Google Chart API


Google provide lots of API for developers to develop their own tools. Today I would like to go through a funny feature from Google Chart Tools - QR code generating.


Developer always have to come across with tons of data and make it to a presentable report for end-users. Google Chart Tools can save your a day. However, we just focus on QR code generating function today. If you interest in it, check it out at http://code.google.com/apis/chart/.


Generating QR code by Google API is just a piece of cake. You just have to append your target message to a URL. Here is an example.


I want to make a QR code with a message 'We love programming.', here we go
https://chart.googleapis.com/chart?chs=150x150&cht=qr&chl=We%20love%20programming


Actually it will be a image if you click on it. The parameter chs is widthxheight. Parameter chl is the message or URL you want to include. Please do URL encode for your message.


I have written a snippet of code to generate QR code by current URL automatically.

<div id="qrcode"></div>
<script>
var img = document.createElement('img');
img.src = 'https://chart.googleapis.com/chart?chs=150x150&cht=qr&chl=' + encodeURIComponent(document.location.href);
document.getElementById('qrcode').appendChild(img);
</script>



Here is just the core function. You can also design your own interface to make a nice QR code generator. For more details, check out the document of Google, http://code.google.com/apis/chart/infographics/docs/overview.html

You can build QR code easily with Google Chart API now, but how QR code can help on your business? Try to read this:
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