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How to read CC data from MagTek reader into web form?

1 points by s1mpl3 ↗ HN
I'm not looking to use Square.

I know about Jeffrey Malone and MagRead.

I also know about 'node-hid'.

I'm just looking for an easy way to swipe a credit card, and just print the data in a web form so you don't have to actually manually type the cc number, expir date, etc. Is this possible?

4 comments

[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 15.8 ms ] thread
ryduh
Hi s1pml3, yes, it's possible. Check out https://jsfiddle.net/KurtWM/tgeWn/

phppointofsale.com uses that code. Check out their demo. They swiping cards and breaking out the code into separate input fields.

s1mpl3
Interesting, that's really useful. But, assuming I have MagTek connected via USB to the computer, how does this code "listen" for the swipe? It looks like it can handle parsing the data just fine, but my question is how to get the data from the swipe into the javascript for parsing
ryduh
The MagTek reader acts as a USB HID (aka a keyboard). When the cursor focus is put on a text field and you swipe a card, the MagTek device acts as if someone typed each character into the field. Then the javascript detects that and parses it out
s1mpl3
omg i see. That makes a lot of sense. Will test this out. Thanks a lot :)