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Add isbn validation on camera scan
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bianco_c
Aug 26, 2025

When using the camera scan to read a ISBN, sometimes it reads it incorrectly.
I guess it is inevitable as the photo could be bad quality, a number could be a bit cancelled, and so on (even if sometimes it can happen also with good quality small ones, like confusing 6s with 8s)

The last digit of a ISBN is a check digit though (both in ISBN 10 and ISBN 13), so it's very easy to check if a ISBN is valid or not by checking this digit.

It would be nice to add a validator to the camera scan, so if the wrongly scanned ISBN is not valid, it can give a popup error saying it can't read the isbn, rather then redirecting to the book import page autofilling it with the wrong ISBN, which could lead to people trying to import wrong ISBNs or adding those manually, or simply thinking that their book is not in storygraph even if actually it's already present, and by scanning again maybe they would find it.

Some reference for ISBN validity algorithms:

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISBN#Check_digits
  • https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/dsa/program-check-isbn/
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