How to Generate and Decode QR Codes in PHP with Simple Code Examples

With the widespread use of smartphones, QR codes have become a practical way to transmit information, and PHP can both generate and decode them using simple functions.

1. Generate QR Code

First, include the open‑source qrcode.php library (available on GitHub). Then call QRCode::png() with the desired text and an output filename to create a QR code image.

require 'qrcode.php';
$text = 'https://example.com'; // QR code content
$filename = 'qrcode.png'; // output file name
QRCode::png($text, $filename); // generate QR code image

The code loads the library, defines the content and filename, and generates the PNG file containing the QR code.

2. Decode QR Code

Decoding is straightforward: use PHP's imagecreatefrompng() to load the QR image, then employ the ZXing library’s decode() method to extract the embedded text.

require 'qrcode.php';
require 'zxing.php';
$filename = 'qrcode.png'; // path to QR code image
$im = imagecreatefrompng($filename); // create image resource
$decoded_text = ZxingDecoder::decode($im); // decode QR code
imagedestroy($im); // free image resource
echo $decoded_text; // output decoded result

This snippet loads both the QR code generation and ZXing decoding libraries, creates an image resource from the PNG file, decodes the QR code, releases the resource, and prints the original text. In real applications you can further customize the QR code generation parameters or handle decoding errors as needed.