qrid/codec

Decode and encode MergeID electronic invoice QR codes

v1.1.0 2026-07-10 08:55 UTC

Requires

• php: >=8.1

Requires (Dev)

• phpunit/phpunit: ^11.0

Suggests

• chillerlan/php-qrcode: ^5.0 — required for encodeQRId() SVG generation

MIT

• Valentin Secades Mendez

• invoice
• decoder
• qrcode
• qr
• codec
• mergeid

Published on Packagist.org on 2026-07-10 08:56 UTC

README

PHP library for encoding and decoding MergeID electronic invoice QR codes.

MergeID QR codes embed invoice identity information (company, tax ID, contact, address) as a base64-encoded JSON payload. This library handles the encode/decode round-trip and, optionally, SVG QR image generation.

Typical usage flow

sequenceDiagram
    actor Staff as Billing Staff
    participant ERP as Billing / ERP System
    participant Lib as qrid/codec
    participant QR as Invoice QR Code
    participant App as MergeID App

    Staff->>ERP: create invoice
    ERP->>Lib: Codec::encodeQRId(id, company, email, address, activityCode)
    Lib-->>ERP: SVG QR code
    ERP->>QR: print / embed on invoice

    Note over App,QR: later, at point of scan
    App->>QR: scan with camera
    QR-->>App: base64 payload string
    App->>Lib: Codec::decodeQRId(encoded)
    Lib-->>App: { v, id, company, email, address, activity_code }
    App-->>Staff: display verified invoice identity

Loading

Installation

# Decode only (no extra dependencies)
composer require qrid/codec

# Decode + encode SVG (adds QR generation library)
composer require qrid/codec chillerlan/php-qrcode

Usage

Decode

Pass the raw string value scanned from a QR code:

use QRId\Codec;

$payload = Codec::decodeQRId($encoded);

echo $payload['v'];             // Payload schema version (int, currently 1)
echo $payload['id'];            // Tax or company ID              (e.g. "3101679980")
echo $payload['company'];       // Company legal name
echo $payload['email'];         // Billing e-mail address
echo $payload['address'];       // Physical address
echo $payload['activity_code']; // Installation / activity code (e.g. "ACT-001"), or "" if blank

decodeQRId trims surrounding whitespace from the input before decoding, so strings copied with accidental padding are handled transparently.

Exceptions thrown:

Exception	Cause
InvalidArgumentException	Input is not valid base64
JsonException	Decoded bytes are not valid JSON

use InvalidArgumentException;
use JsonException;
use QRId\Codec;

try {
    $payload = Codec::decodeQRId($raw);
} catch (InvalidArgumentException $e) {
    // QR data was not base64
} catch (JsonException $e) {
    // QR data decoded but was not the expected JSON structure
}

Encode (requires chillerlan/php-qrcode)

Produce an SVG QR code from invoice identity fields:

use QRId\Codec;

$svg = Codec::encodeQRId(
    id:           '3101679980',
    company:      'Acme Corp S.A.',
    email:        '[e-mail]',
    address:      '123 Main St, San José, Costa Rica',
    activityCode: 'ACT-001',
);

// Serve inline
header('Content-Type: image/svg+xml');
echo $svg;

// Or embed in HTML
echo '<img src="data:image/svg+xml;utf8,' . rawurlencode($svg) . '">';

activityCode is optional and defaults to '' (blank). A blank activity code signals a consuming system to generate an electronic ticket instead of using an activity code.

Exceptions thrown:

Exception	Cause
RuntimeException	chillerlan/php-qrcode is not installed
JsonException	JSON encoding of the payload failed (should not occur in practice)

Payload format

The QR code data is a UTF-8 JSON object encoded as standard base64 (no line-breaks):

{
  "v": 1,
  "id": "3101679980",
  "company": "Acme Corp S.A.",
  "email": "[e-mail]",
  "address": "123 Main St, San José, Costa Rica",
  "activity_code": "ACT-001"
}

Field	Type	Description
v	int	Payload schema version. Currently always 1.
id	string	Tax / company registration ID.
company	string	Legal company name (UTF-8, including accented characters).
email	string	Primary billing or contact e-mail address.
address	string	Physical address of the company.
activity_code	string	Installation or activity code that links the QR to an internal record. May be blank (""), which signals a consuming system to generate an electronic ticket instead.

Requirements

Dependency	Version	Required for
PHP	>= 8.1	Always
chillerlan/php-qrcode	^5.0	encodeQRId() only

Running tests

composer install
composer test

Tests cover field decoding, UTF-8 handling, whitespace trimming, error paths, and (when chillerlan/php-qrcode is available) the full encode-decode round-trip.

Publishing

New versions reach Packagist automatically — there is no build/upload step:

1. Bump the version in the VERSION file (repo root) and merge to main.
2. release.yml runs on every push to main. It reads VERSION; if no vX.Y.Z tag already exists for it, it runs PHPUnit across PHP 8.2–8.4 (PHPUnit 11's minimum, even though the library itself supports PHP >= 8.1) and creates that tag plus a GitHub Release.
3. Packagist's webhook on this repository picks up the new tag and republishes it within moments. Composer installs straight from the tagged GitHub source (via dist/zipball), so — unlike PyPI or npm — there's no artifact to build/upload and no OIDC/trusted-publisher concept to configure.

composer.json intentionally has no version field: Composer/Packagist derive the version purely from git tags, and a hardcoded field risks drifting out of sync with the actual tag. VERSION exists only so the release workflow has something to read.

Pushes to main that don't change VERSION are a no-op (the tag already exists), so unrelated commits (docs, CI tweaks) don't trigger a release.

License

MIT