# mchehab/zbar

ZBar is an open source software suite for reading bar codes from various sources, including webcams. As its development stopped in 2012, I took the task of keeping it updated with the V4L2 API. This is the main repository for it. There's a clone at at LinuxTV.org, and another one at gitlab.

Repository: https://github.com/mchehab/zbar
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/mchehab-zbar
Homepage: https://linuxtv.org/downloads/zbar/
Language: C
License: LGPL-2.1
License Family: copyleft
Topics: barcode, barcode-scanner, v4l2, linux
Last push: 2026-03-16T13:39:29+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 55/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 72, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 2947, "days_push": 170, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1361, forks 239 (observed 2026-08-28T04:04:30.137557+00:00)

## What it is
ZBar is an open-source C library and suite of tools for reading barcodes from video streams, image files, and sensors, supporting formats like EAN/UPC, Code 128, QR Code, and more. This fork by mchehab maintains the original project with updated V4L2 API support and provides bindings for C, C++, Python, and Perl plus Qt/GTK widgets.

## Use cases
- decode barcodes from webcam video feed
- scan QR codes from image files
- integrate barcode reading into a C or Python application
- build a barcode scanner app with Qt or GTK widgets
- read UPC/EAN codes from product images
- decode Code 128 barcodes from a video device on Linux

## When to choose
- you need a mature, lightweight native barcode decoding library in C/C++
- you're on Linux and need V4L2 webcam barcode scanning
- you want QR Code and common 1D barcode support with language bindings
- you need a CLI tool to decode barcodes from images or video devices

## When to avoid
- you need modern Python 3-first bindings with active ecosystem (consider pyzbar wrappers or zxing-cpp)
- you need barcode generation, not just decoding
- you need support for newer symbologies like PDF417 or Aztec
- you want a pure high-level managed-language solution without native dependencies

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: maintenance
- function: computer-vision, image-processing, sdk, cli
- domain: computer-vision, image-processing, developer-tools, cross-platform
- platform: windows, cross-platform, cli
- tags: barcode-scanner, qr-code, v4l2, c-library, decoder, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- mchehab/zbar (main) score 55

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:04:30.137557+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T04:41:35.587720+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/mchehab/zbar (fetched 2026-08-28T04:04:30.137557+00:00, sha 3a7034b3292d)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.