with paypal , sending a variable

just a small query

[AjiNIMC]

Hi,

We have two option for our users,

1) Annual Charge
2) One time charge

People chooses a specific category for the listing and then clicks on paypal button, it takes you to paypal and then you can pay the money.

The problem is when they are coming back to our thanks page from paypal I am not able to track which category they choosed. How can I send a variable to Paypal? and does it returns the variable to me?

This is the first time I am trying to implement the paypal. Please help

Thanks
Aji

[quozt]

i have been asking the same question in several forums matey still no answer

[dmmh]

use one of these hidden fields to transfer your variables

[paypaldev.org...]

[pontifex]

You might take the custom variable...

&custom=YOURCAT

And then you MUST turn on the Payment Data transfer or the IPN. I prefer to use the IPN functions of paypal, because they are quite safe from hack tries...

If you use the Payment Data Transfer, PayPal jumps back to your configured THANKYOU page with the variable in the request string and you can look it up in your PHP ...
cheers,
P!

[AjiNIMC]

Yeah we have done this using optional variables but is IPN better or PDT?

[dmmh]

IPN is more advanced and thus less easy to entirely understand. If you get all what you want from PDT, why make it more complicated?

[AjiNIMC]

Very True, I am opting for PDT but security and reliability wise which one is better.

Thanks
Aji

[dmmh]

afaik both are equally secure, but be sure to ask it to confirm in the payypal developer forums too. I used it for a bit, but I decided to finish the other parts of my site first :)