About

A simple command line tool to bulk-generate QR Codes from one or more CSV files.

Allows control over the following QR configuration options:

• QR max and min version
• Error correction level
• Mask

Latest Release

Latest Release Page

Downloads

• x86_64-apple-darwin.zip
• x86_64-pc-windows-msvc.zip
• i686-pc-windows-msvc.zip
• x86_64-unknown-linux-musl.zip

Description

Given one or more input files, each line will be read and turned into a QR code. The file must have the following CSV format:

file name,content
site_url,"https://ihamlin.co.uk"
productid,9998819191919191

The headers are optional, but the relevant flag will need to be passed to the tool in order to ensure correct processing.

Usage

USAGE:
    qrgen [FLAGS] [OPTIONS] <infile>...

FLAGS:
    -s, --skip       A flag indicating if the first line of the CSV is a header and should be skipped, defaults to false
                     if not specified
    -h, --help       Prints help information
    -l, --log        A flag indicating if output will be logged, defaults to false if not specified
        --no-rect    A flag indicating if the svg output should render the <rect /> tag.  Ignored if using PNG
    -V, --version    Prints version information
    -v, --verbose    Verbose logging mode (-v, -vv, -vvv)

OPTIONS:
    -x, --max <QR version max>              The maximum version number supported in the QR Code Model 2 standard, or 40
                                            if not specified [default: 40]
    -m, --min <QR version min>              The minimum version number supported in the QR Code Model 2 standard, or 1
                                            if not specified [default: 1]
    -g, --background <background>           Set the foreground colour of the QR code using a six-digit hex value.
                                            Defaults to FFFFFF [default: FFFFFF]
    -b, --border <border>                   The size of the border on the generated QR Code, defaults to 4 if not
                                            specified [default: 4]
    -c, --chunk <chunk size>                The number of lines to try and process in parallel, if not specified
                                            defaults to 1 and file is processed line by line [default: 1]
    -e, --error <error correction level>    The error correction level used in this QR Code, or High if not specified.
                                            "Low" The QR Code can tolerate about  7% erroneous codewords. "Medium" The
                                            QR Code can tolerate about 15% erroneous codewords. "Quartile" The QR Code
                                            can tolerate about 25% erroneous codewords. "High" The QR Code can tolerate
                                            about 30% erroneous codewords [default: High]
    -r, --foreground <forgeround>           Set the foreground colour of the QR code using a six-digit hex value.
                                            Defaults to 000000 [default: 000000]
    -k, --mask <mask>                       The mask value to apply to the QR Code, between 0 and 7 (inclusive)
    -f, --format <output format type>       The target output format.  Defaults to SVG if not specified [default: SVG]
    -o, --output <output path>              Output path, or current working directory if not specified or - provided
                                            [default: -]
    -a, --scale <scale>                     The side length (measured in pixels, must be positive) of each module,
                                            defaults to 8. This value only applies when using the PNG format. Must be
                                            between 1 and 255 (inclusive) [default: 8]

ARGS:
    <infile>...    Input file, must be specified

Examples

Basic

The most basic usage is to pass a single CSV file. This would generate QR Codes using the defaults and saving the output to the current working directory.

# macOS
./qrgen wiktionary.csv
./qrgen wiktionary_small.csv -s // This file has headers so the first line will now be skipped.

# windows
.\qrgen.exe wiktionary.csv
.\qrgen.exe wiktionary_small.csv -s // This file has headers so the first line will now be skipped.

Colour

Setting the background and foreground colours.

# macOS
./qrgen wiktionary.csv --background DC5067 --foreground 61528A
./qrgen wiktionary.csv -g DC5067 -r 61528A

Logging

Logging can be turned on with the --log/-l flag combined with zero or more -v options.

# macOS
./qrgen wiktionary.csv -l // Warn level
./qrgen wiktionary.csv -l -v // Info level
./qrgen wiktionary.csv -l -vv // Debug level
./qrgen wiktionary.csv -l -vvv // Trace level

# windows
.\qrgen.exe wiktionary.csv -l // Warn level
.\qrgen.exe wiktionary.csv -l -v // Info level
.\qrgen.exe wiktionary.csv -l -vv // Debug level
.\qrgen.exe wiktionary.csv -l -vvv // Trace level

Parallelism

For larger CSV files you can try changing the chunk size. The tool will then try to process N rows in parallel, this can lead to speed improvements.

$ # macOS
$  time ./qrgen wiktionary.csv -c 1000
real    0m4.192s
user    0m24.714s
sys     0m2.047s

$ time ./qrgen wiktionary.csv -c 1000 -f png //PNG output is somewhat slower.
real     0m25.891s
user     2m44.867s
sys     0m7.801s

$ time ./qrgen wiktionary.csv
real    0m18.590s
user    0m16.928s
sys     0m1.539s

# windows
Measure-Command {.\qrgen.exe .\wiktionary.csv -c 1000}
TotalSeconds      : 7.6210615

Measure-Command {.\qrgen.exe .\wiktionary.csv -c 1000 -f png}
TotalSeconds      : 20.3840191

Measure-Command {.\qrgen.exe .\wiktionary.csv}
TotalSeconds      : 22.5059321

Roadmap

• Add support to zip the output.