Returns a tuple of the optimized segments and QR Code version for the given text and error correction level.

Creates a new QR Code object for the given data segments, error correction level, and QR Code version that is large enough to contain all the data in the segments. Note that this method does not check the data length before encoding, so it will just raise Index out of bounds error if the data does not fit within the given version. Use PNGExporter to generate the PNG image from the QR Code object generated.

segments = [
  Goban::Segment.alphanumeric("HELLO WORLD"),
  Goban::Segment.byte("!"),
]
qr = Goban::QR.encode_segments(segments, Goban::ECC::Level::Low, Goban::QR::Version.new(1))
qr.print_to_console
# => ██████████████    ██  ████  ██████████████
#    ██          ██    ██████    ██          ██
#    ██  ██████  ██  ████  ████  ██  ██████  ██
#    ██  ██████  ██    ██  ██    ██  ██████  ██
#    ██  ██████  ██      ██  ██  ██  ██████  ██
#    ██          ██          ██  ██          ██
#    ██████████████  ██  ██  ██  ██████████████
#                    ████  ████
#    ██████  ████████████████  ████      ██
#        ██    ██                    ██      ██
#      ████  ██  ████████    ██████  ████
#      ██  ██  ██  ████████    ██  ██  ██████
#        ██  ██████  ██      ██  ██████  ██  ██
#                    ██  ████  ██        ██  ██
#    ██████████████  ████████    ████  ████
#    ██          ██  ████  ████    ██  ██
#    ██  ██████  ██  ████████    ██████████████
#    ██  ██████  ██        ██  ██████      ██
#    ██  ██████  ██  ██      ██  ████  ██    ██
#    ██          ██  ████████          ██  ████
#    ██████████████  ██      ██  ████        ██

When constructing your own segments, note that it may not result in the segments that has the shortest data length even if for each character in the source string you choose an encoding type with the smallest character set that supports that supports it.

Creates a new QR Code object for the given string and error correction level. Setting a higher error correction level makes the QR Code symbol mode resistant to loss of pixels, but it requires more redundant bits, resulting in a larger symbol size. Use PNGExporter to generate the PNG image from the QR Code object generated.

qr = Goban::QR.encode_string("Hello World!", Goban::ECC::Level::Low)
qr.print_to_console
# => ██████████████  ████    ██  ██████████████
#    ██          ██    ██    ██  ██          ██
#    ██  ██████  ██  ██  ██  ██  ██  ██████  ██
#    ██  ██████  ██  ██    ██    ██  ██████  ██
#    ██  ██████  ██  ██████      ██  ██████  ██
#    ██          ██              ██          ██
#    ██████████████  ██  ██  ██  ██████████████
#                      ████
#    ████████    ██  ██  ██    ██    ██████  ██
#    ██████████    ██  ██    ██████████████  ██
#        ██    ████    ██    ████  ██      ████
#    ████  ██      ██████    ██    ██  ██  ██
#    ████  ██████████  ██████  ████          ██
#                    ████████    ████    ██  ██
#    ██████████████      ██    ████████
#    ██          ██    ██████████  ██  ████
#    ██  ██████  ██    ██  ██          ██████
#    ██  ██████  ██  ██  ██  ██  ██    ██████
#    ██  ██████  ██  ██████  ██    ██    ██
#    ██          ██  ██    ██  ████████      ██
#    ██████████████  ██    ██  ██████    ██

QR Code data under the hood is encoded in one or more encoding types, such as Numeric, Alphanumeric, Byte, and Kanji. Each encoding type has a different set of characters supported. While Byte mode can express arbitrary types of data (usually interpreted as UTF-8 text, thus it can express any Unicode characters), it often uses more bits to represent a single codepoint compared to other encoding types which have a limited set of characters supported, resulting in larger data size and a more challenging QR Code to scan.

This string encoding uses an algorithm to figure out the best segmentation of the encoding types for the given string to make the resulting data size as small as possible. Here are the examples:

# These examples are the optimal segmentations when the EC Level is Medium.
# Note that the Segment object shown in these examples are not the actual Segment object used
# in the Goban's codebase but they are just pseudo objects.

"0123456789" # => [Segment("0123456789", mode: Numeric)]
"ABCDEF"     # => [Segment("ABCDEF", mode: Alphanumeric)]
"012345A"    # => [Segment("012345A", mode: Alphanumeric)]
"0123456A"   # => [Segment("0123456", mode: Numeric), Segment("A", mode: Alphanumeric)]
"こんにちwa、世界！ 123"
# => [
#   Segment("こんにち", mode: Kanji),
#   Segment("wa", mode: Byte),
#   Segment("、世界！", mode: Kanji),
#   Segment(" 123", mode: Alphanumeric)
# ]

If the type of characters used in your data strings is always the same, you may want to consider building data segments by yourself so that Goban doesn't have to do extra processing to figure it out every single time.

The optimal segments and version to hard-code can be figured out by manually executing Segment::Segmenter.segment_text_optimized_qr. You can hard-code the segments and version based on its response, and use QR.encode_segments to create QR Codes using that segments and version.