## BarCode Control - generate barcode images

The BarCode Control provides a simple API to generate barcode images. The control is invoked as follows:

    ByteArrayOutputStream out = new ByteArrayOutputStream():
    String barcode = "457989792";
    boolean showName = false;
    BarcodeStrategy strategy = BarcodeStrategy.CODE_39;

    control.generateBarcode(barcode, showName, out, strategy);

The control streams the image to the supplied OutputStream. This output stream can be to a byte array, as shown in the code snippet. It could equally well be the output stream associated with a HttpServletResponse - thereby enabling you stream the image to a web browser. This is the approach taken by the Java Page Flow sample that accompanies the control - it uses a Java Page Flow action to stream a GIF image back to a browser.
The barcode string is the encoding of the barcode as issued by barcode providers. The strategy is the type of encoding used by the barcode. Supported encodings include Code 39, Extended Code 39, Codabar, Code 128, Interleaved 25 and MSI.
The showName boolean states whether to display the barcode string under the barcode image.
The control implementation uses the JBarcodeBean written by Dafydd Walters and which is hosted here on SourceForge.