Driver License Barcode Field Data Types

Question

I am given a task to develop a small library which needs to be able to read PDF417 barcode located on the back of the Driver's License card and parse the data out to our custom object.

However I need to know what data types are these Data types denoting?

4/ANS, 10/ANS, 5/ANS, etc.

The complete documentation can be found at: http://www.dol.wa.gov/external/docs/barcodeCalibration-basic.pdf

Answer 1

Guessing here, but <field length>/ANS, where A is alphabetic, N numeric and S spaces?

For example, 3/A is 3 alphabetic characters like USA.

Funny that weight and sex are both 1/N, but the example given (2 in both cases) fits my hypothesis.

Answer 2

The Washington spec is based on the AAMVA standard here: http://www.aamva.org/DL-ID-Card-Design-Standard/

The 2013 ID Card Design Standard is here: http://www.aamva.org/WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=4435

The PDF 417 barcode specifications start on page 51 (65) of that document. On page 58 (72) they list the type definitions: "A=alpha A-Z, N=numeric 0-9, S=special, F=fixed length, V=variable length"