C bindings for zxing-cpp
February 8, 2026 ยท View on GitHub
This is about the C-API of zxing-cpp. If you have any comments or feedback, please have a look at https://github.com/zxing-cpp/zxing-cpp/discussions/583.
Installation
The C-API is enabled by default but can be removed (cmake -DZXING_C_API=OFF).
Probably the easiest way to play with the C-API is to just modify the ZXingCTest.c file.
Usage
The following is close to the most trivial use case scenario that is supported.
#include "ZXing/ZXingC.h"
int main(int argc, char** argv)
{
int width, height;
unsigned char* data;
/* load your image data from somewhere. ZXing_ImageFormat_Lum assumes grey scale image data. */
ZXing_ImageView* iv = ZXing_ImageView_new(data, width, height, ZXing_ImageFormat_Lum, 0, 0);
ZXing_ReaderOptions* opts = ZXing_ReaderOptions_new();
/* set ReaderOptions properties, if required, e.g. */
ZXing_BarcodeFormat formats[] = {ZXing_BarcodeFormat_QRCode, ZXing_BarcodeFormat_EAN13};
ZXing_ReaderOptions_setFormats(opts, formats, 2);
ZXing_Barcodes* barcodes = ZXing_ReadBarcodes(iv, opts);
ZXing_ImageView_delete(iv);
ZXing_ReaderOptions_delete(opts);
if (barcodes) {
for (int i = 0, n = ZXing_Barcodes_size(barcodes); i < n; ++i) {
const ZXing_Barcode* barcode = ZXing_Barcodes_at(barcodes, i);
char* format = ZXing_BarcodeFormatToString(ZXing_Barcode_format(barcode));
printf("Format : %s\n", format);
ZXing_free(format);
char* text = ZXing_Barcode_text(barcode);
printf("Text : %s\n", text);
ZXing_free(text);
}
ZXing_Barcodes_delete(barcodes);
} else {
char* error = ZXing_LastErrorMsg();
fprintf(stderr, "%s\n", error);
ZXing_free(error);
}
return 0;
}