Supported Schemes

'++' schemes (TDS 2.3) support lossless encoding of custom hostnames in EPC binary, enabling round-trip translation with branded Digital Link URIs like https://coca-cola.com/01/... instead of https://id.gs1.org/01/....

Installation

NuGet (.NET and .NET MAUI)

dotnet add package TagDataTranslation

Or via Package Manager:

Install-Package TagDataTranslation

The NuGet package includes targets for .NET 8.0/9.0/10.0, Android, iOS, and macCatalyst. .NET MAUI projects will automatically resolve the correct platform target.

From Source

git clone https://github.com/dannyhaak/TagDataTranslation.git
cd TagDataTranslation
dotnet build src/TagDataTranslation/TagDataTranslation.csproj

Requirements

• .NET 8.0 or later (supports .NET 8.0, 9.0, and 10.0)
• For mobile targets: .NET MAUI workload (dotnet workload install maui)

Quick Start

Encode GTIN to Hex

using TagDataTranslation;

var engine = new TDTEngine();
string epcIdentifier = "gtin=00037000302414;serial=10419703";
string parameterList = "filter=3;gs1companyprefixlength=7;tagLength=96";
string binary = engine.Translate(epcIdentifier, parameterList, "BINARY");
string hex = engine.BinaryToHex(binary);
// hex = "30340242201d8840009efdf7"

Decode Hex to GTIN

var engine = new TDTEngine();
string binary = engine.HexToBinary("30340242201d8840009efdf7");
string parameterList = "tagLength=96";
string legacy = engine.Translate(binary, parameterList, "LEGACY");
// legacy = "gtin=00037000302414;serial=10419703"

Get All Representations

var engine = new TDTEngine();
var result = engine.TranslateDetails("30340242201d8840009efdf7", "tagLength=96", "TAG_ENCODING");

Console.WriteLine($"Pure Identity: {result.Fields["pureIdentityURI"]}");
Console.WriteLine($"Tag URI: {result.Fields["tagURI"]}");
Console.WriteLine($"GTIN: {result.Fields["gtin"]}");
Console.WriteLine($"Serial: {result.Fields["serial"]}");

Digital Link Generation

using TagDataTranslation.DigitalLink;

var components = new DigitalLinkComponents
{
    Domain = "id.gs1.org",
    PrimaryKey = ("01", "00037000302414"),  // AI 01 = GTIN
    KeyQualifiers = new List<(string, string)>
    {
        ("21", "10419703")  // AI 21 = Serial
    }
};

string digitalLink = DigitalLinkGenerator.Generate(components);
// https://id.gs1.org/01/00037000302414/21/10419703

Digital Link Parsing

if (DigitalLinkParser.TryParse("https://id.gs1.org/01/00037000302414/21/10419703", out var components))
{
    Console.WriteLine($"GTIN: {components.PrimaryKey.Value}");
    // GTIN: 00037000302414
}

GS1 Company Prefix Lookup

var engine = new TDTEngine();
var result = engine.GetPrefixLength("0037000302414");
Console.WriteLine($"Prefix: {result.Prefix}, Length: {result.Length}");
// Prefix: 0037000, Length: 7

Debugging Scheme Loading

var engine = new TDTEngine();
if (engine.LoadErrors.Count > 0)
{
    foreach (var error in engine.LoadErrors)
    {
        Console.WriteLine(error);
    }
}

API Reference

TDTEngine

Translate

public string Translate(string epcIdentifier, string parameterList, string outputFormat)

Translates an EPC identifier from one representation to another.

Returns: The converted EPC as a string.

TranslateDetails

public TranslateResult TranslateDetails(string epcIdentifier, string parameterList, string outputFormat)

Same as Translate, but returns a TranslateResult object containing all extracted fields.

TryTranslate (Exception-Free)

public bool TryTranslate(string epcIdentifier, string parameterList, string outputFormat, out string? result, out string? errorCode)

Translates an EPC identifier without throwing exceptions. Ideal for high-throughput scenarios.

if (engine.TryTranslate(epcIdentifier, parameterList, "BINARY", out var result, out var errorCode))
{
    Console.WriteLine($"Success: {result}");
}
else
{
    Console.WriteLine($"Failed: {errorCode}");
}

TryTranslateDetails (Exception-Free)

public bool TryTranslateDetails(string epcIdentifier, string parameterList, string outputFormat, out TranslateResult? result, out string? errorCode)

Same as TryTranslate, but returns a TranslateResult object on success.

GetPrefixLength

public PrefixLengthResult GetPrefixLength(string input)

Looks up the GS1 Company Prefix length for a given identifier.

GetFilterValueTable

public Dictionary<int, string> GetFilterValueTable(string scheme)

Returns the filter value descriptions for a scheme (e.g., "SGTIN" returns {0: "All Others", 1: "POS Item", ...}).

LoadErrors

public IReadOnlyList<string> LoadErrors { get; }

Contains any errors encountered while loading scheme files. Inspect this after construction to debug missing or malformed schemes.

Helper Methods

public string HexToBinary(string hex)      // Convert hex to binary string
public string BinaryToHex(string binary)   // Convert binary string to hex

Exceptions

TDTTranslationException is thrown with one of these codes:

Performance

Benchmarked on Apple M1 Pro, .NET 8.0 (BenchmarkDotNet):

The engine uses compiled regex caching, pre-sorted scheme data, and lookup tables for hex/binary conversion. The TDTEngine constructor loads all schemes once; subsequent Translate() calls benefit from cached patterns and pre-computed data structures.

Run benchmarks yourself:

dotnet run -c Release --project test/TagDataTranslation.Benchmarks

Examples

See the examples/ directory for platform-specific sample projects:

• examples/ConsoleApp/ -- .NET console application
• examples/MauiApp/ -- .NET MAUI cross-platform app (Android, iOS, macCatalyst)
• examples/NodeApp/ -- Node.js application (via WebAssembly)

Building

dotnet build src/TagDataTranslation/TagDataTranslation.csproj
dotnet test test/TagDataTranslation.Tests/TagDataTranslation.Tests.csproj

Creating a NuGet Package

dotnet pack src/TagDataTranslation/TagDataTranslation.csproj -c Release -o ./artifacts

To publish to NuGet.org:

dotnet nuget push ./artifacts/TagDataTranslation.*.nupkg --api-key YOUR_API_KEY --source https://api.nuget.org/v3/index.json

Version History

License

This library is licensed under the Business Source License 1.1 (BSL 1.1).

• Non-production use (development, testing, evaluation) is free
• Production use requires a commercial license -- contact tdt@mimasu.nl
• Each version converts to Apache 2.0 four years after release

See LICENSING.md for full details.

The included JSON and XSD artifacts are (c) GS1 (https://www.gs1.org/standards/epc-rfid/tdt).

Use Cases

• Tag programming: Encode GTINs and SSCCs to EPC hex for writing to RAIN RFID tags
• Tag reading: Decode EPC hex from RFID readers back to human-readable identifiers
• Inventory systems: Translate between barcode and RFID representations
• Supply chain: Convert between GS1 Digital Link URIs and EPC binary
• Label printing: Generate EPC hex for RFID-enabled label printers (Zebra, SATO, etc.)
• Mobile RFID apps: Encode/decode on iOS and Android via native SDKs

Resources

• GS1 TDT Standard
• GS1 Tag Data Standard (TDS)
• GS1 Digital Link
• Online Demo
• RAIN RFID Training Academy