Decoding a Barcode to a Sale UUID

Lightspeed Retail (X-Series) receipts include a Code 128C barcode that encodes the sale's UUID. The barcode is represented as a 40-digit decimal string and can be decoded back to the original UUID.

How it works

The encoding is a base conversion:

1. The sale's UUID hyphens are stripped → 32-character hex string
2. Parsed as base-16 → big integer
3. Converted to base-10 decimal → left-padded to 40 digits

Decoding simply reverses this process.

Example

Input: 0245627979572117920329262531130524296091 Output: b8ca3a65-0183-11e4-fbb5-39f7fce5e39b

Decoding with Python

As a one-liner:

python3 -c "b='0245627979572117920329262531130524296091'; h=format(int(b),'032x'); print(f'{h[0:8]}-{h[8:12]}-{h[12:16]}-{h[16:20]}-{h[20:32]}')"

Decoding with Node.js

As a one-liner:

node -e "const h=BigInt('0245627979572117920329262531130524296091').toString(16).padStart(32,'0');console.log([h.slice(0,8),h.slice(8,12),h.slice(12,16),h.slice(16,20),h.slice(20,32)].join('-'))"

Looking up the sale

Once you have the UUID, use it to retrieve the sale via the API:

GET /api/{version}/sales/{uuid}

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer {token}" \
  https://{domain_prefix}.retail.lightspeed.app/api/{version}/sales/b8ca3a65-0183-11e4-fbb5-39f7fce5e39b

See Sales 101 for more details on the sale object.