Chipcard/CTAPI version 0.2 ========================== CTAPI is an industry standard for accessing chipcard terminals. CTAPI drivers are available for all popular card readers. Chipcard::CTAPI is a Perl module which allows direct access to both memory cards and processor cards (smartcards) based on the CTAPI library. Besides the CTAPI functions themselves, Chipcard::CTAPI provides a series of convenience methods for easy reading and writing of memory cards. Using CTAPI often has advantages over using the other popular card terminal framework, PC/SC. Most noticable is that setting up the CTAPI drivers is an easy task even for less advanced end users and that it has no run-time overhead. PC/SC on the other hand requires more work to set up and results in a daemon process running all the time. Thus, using CTAPI is ideal when writing applications which can make use of chipcards but don't focus on the communication with the card terminal too much. Chipcard::CTAPI is well documented and comes with a couple of demo applications. PREREQUISITES ------------- 1. Perl, Version 5.005 or higher (5.6 or higher recommended). 2. A working CTAPI library for your card terminal. If you're using the popular Towitoko card terminals, pick libtowitoko from http://www.geocities.com/cprados/ . INSTALLATION ------------ 1. If you do NOT have a Towitoko card terminal, you'll have to edit Makefile.PL and change the LIBS line. It currently looks like this: 'LIBS' => ['-ltowitoko'], # PUT YOUR CARD TERMINAL ... Change the -ltowitoko to match your CTAPI library's name. For example, if your library's filename is libsmarty123.so, you'd put -lsmarty123 between [' and '] . 2. Run the following commands: perl Makefile.PL make make test This should work without any errors. If it doesn't work, make sure ctapi.h and ctbcs.h as well as the library set in step 1 can be found on your machine. If you want to test whether the communication with your card terminal actually works, edit the file quicktest.pl to make sure the correct physical port your card terminal is attached to is used, and then run perl ctapitest.pl If this works without errors so far, it is safe to run make install You might require root privileges for this last step depending on your system. EXAMPLES AND DOCUMENTATION -------------------------- You can view the perl module's documentation using this command: perldoc Chipcard::CTAPI If you're planning on using it in your own Perl programs, you should take some time and read it all. There's a couple of demo applications in the demos/ subdirectory of the distribution archive. They're less useful by themselves, but show how various operations can be done easily using Chipcard::CTAPI. NOTES ----- This version of Chipcard::CTAPI has only been tested with Towitoko chipcard terminals. Although CTAPI is standardized, this module might not work with your hardware. Please report problems. COPYRIGHT AND LICENCE --------------------- Copyright (C) 2003 Wolfgang Hommel (wolf (at) code-wizards.com) This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.