CodeScanner – A SwiftUI view to scan QR & barcodes

CodeScanner is a SwiftUI framework that makes it easy to scan codes such as QR codes and barcodes. It provides a view struct, CodeScannerView, that can be shown inside a sheet so that all scanning occurs in one place.

Basic usage

You should create an instance of CodeScannerView with at least two parameters: an array of the types to scan for, and a closure that will be called when a result is ready.

Your completion closure must accept a Result<ScanResult, ScanError>, where the success case is the code string and type that was found. For example, if you asked to scan for QR codes and bar codes, you might be told that a QR code containing the email address paul@hackingwithswift.com was found.

If things go wrong, your result will contain a ScanError set to one of these three cases:

• badInput, if the camera cannot be accessed
• badOutput, if the camera is not capable of detecting codes
• initError, if initialization failed.

Important: iOS requires you to add the “Privacy – Camera Usage Description” key to your Info.plist file, providing a reason for why you want to access the camera.

Customization options

You can provide a variety of extra customization options to CodeScannerView in its initializer:

• scanMode can be .once to scan a single code, .oncePerCode to scan many codes but only trigger finding each unique code once, and .continuous will keep finding codes until you dismiss the scanner. Default: .once.
• scanInterval controls how fast individual codes should be scanned when running in .continuous scan mode.
• showViewfinder determines whether to show a box-like viewfinder over the UI. Default: false.
• simulatedData allows you to provide some test data to use in Simulator, when real scanning isn’t available. Default: an empty string.
• shouldVibrateOnSuccess allows you to determine whether device should vibrate when a code is found. Default: true.

If you want to add UI customization, such as a dedicated Cancel button, you should wrap your CodeScannerView instance in a NavigationView and use a toolbar() modifier to add whatever buttons you want.

Examples

Here’s some example code to create a QR code-scanning view that prints the code that was found or any error. If it’s used in the simulator it will return a name, because that’s provided as the simulated data:

CodeScannerView(codeTypes: [.qr], simulatedData: "Paul Hudson") { response in                    
    switch response {
    case .success(let result):
        print("Found code: \(result.string)")
    case .failure(let error):
        print(error.localizedDescription)
    }
}

Your completion closure is probably where you want to dismiss the CodeScannerView.

Here’s an example on how to present the QR code-scanning view as a sheet and how the scanned barcode can be passed to the next view in a NavigationView:

struct QRCodeScannerExampleView: View {
    @State private var isPresentingScanner = false
    @State private var scannedCode: String?

    var body: some View {
        VStack(spacing: 10) {
            if let code = scannedCode {
                NavigationLink("Next page", destination: NextView(scannedCode: code), isActive: .constant(true)).hidden()
            }

            Button("Scan Code") {
                isPresentingScanner = true
            }

            Text("Scan a QR code to begin")
        }
        .sheet(isPresented: $isPresentingScanner) {
            CodeScannerView(codeTypes: [.qr]) { response in
                if case let .success(result) = response {
                    scannedCode = result.string
                    isPresentingScanner = false
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

Credits

CodeScanner was made by Paul Hudson, who writes free Swift tutorials over at Hacking with Swift. It’s available under the MIT license, which permits commercial use, modification, distribution, and private use.

CodeScanner on GitHub: https://github.com/twostraws/CodeScanner
Platform: iOS
⭐️: 602