PayPal Integrator IPN Component : IPN OCX, IPN .NET Component, IPN Class, IPN Bean, IPN Object

Available in: PAYPAL

IPN Component [PayPal Integrator V3]

Properties Methods Events Configuration Settings

The IPN component is used to validate an Instant Payment Notification, to make sure it is not fraudulent and was actually sent by PayPal.

NOTE: What follows is a very short description of the component interfaces. For more information, please consult the help files that come with the respective package.

Remarks

The IPN component can be used by the merchant to verify that a received Instant Payment Notification did indeed come from PayPal. PayPal will post the Instant Payment Notification to the merchant's web site indicated in their PayPal Profile.

When an Instant Payment Notification is received, simply pass the posted data to the FillFormVars method to automatically parse it and store it into the FormVars collection. Then call the VerifyIPN method. The Response property will then indicate whether the IPN was sent by PayPal ("VERIFIED") or was fraudulent ("INVALID").

After the Instant Payment Notification has been verified, it is parsed into properties which contain vital transaction details, such as the Payer's email, shipping address, the item sold, payment amount, etc, to further process the transaction (i.e. Ship the item, automatically send a login/password, or update a database).

The following code shows how to verify an Instant Payment Notification received from PayPal:

component.FillFormVars(Request.Form()) component.VerifyIPN() If (component.Response = "VERIFIED") Then ProcessOrder() ' Process the order Else LogError() ' Log the error and ignore this fraudulent IPN. End If

If the programming language you are using does not allow you to request the entire form as shown above, you must manually parse the IPN, as shown below:

Enumeration en = request.getParameterNames(); while (en.hasMoreElements()){ String paramName = (String) en.nextElement(); String paramValue = request.getParameter(paramName); component.addFormVar(paramName, paramValue); } component.verifyIPN(); if (component.getResponse().equals("VERIFIED")) { processOrder(); // Process the order } else { logError(); // Log the error and ignore this fraudulent IPN. }

Property List

The following is the full list of the properties of the component with short descriptions. Click on the links for further details.


Address	The address of the buyer.
Firewall	A set of properties related to firewall access.
FormVars	Form variables for the current request.
Idle	The current status of the component.
ItemName	Name of item purchased.
ItemNumber	Identification or product number associated with the item purchased.
Memo	Note entered by customer when paying for item.
Payer	Details about the payer are described here.
Payment	Payment contains details about the payment.
Proxy	A set of properties related to proxy access.
Quantity	Quantity of items purchased.
RecipientEmail	Primary email address of the payment recipient (the seller).
Response	Response to the verification.
SSLAcceptServerCert	Instructs the component to unconditionally accept the server certificate that matches the supplied certificate.
SSLCert	The certificate to be used during SSL negotiation.
SSLServerCert	The server certificate for the last established connection.
Timeout	A timeout for the component.
TransactionId	Id of the transaction for which the Instant Payment Notification was sent.
TransactionType	The type of transaction.
URL	URL to which an IPN verification request is sent.

Method List

The following is the full list of the methods of the component with short descriptions. Click on the links for further details.


AddFormVar	Adds a form variable and the corresponding value.
Config	Sets or retrieves a configuration setting.
DoEvents	Processes events from the internal message queue.
FillFormVars	This is used to fill the FormVars property.
GetValue	Returns the value of the specified form variable.
Interrupt	Interrupt the current method.
Reset	Reset the internal state of the component and all properties to their default values.
VerifyIPN	Verifies the IPN received by the merchant.

Event List

The following is the full list of the events fired by the component with short descriptions. Click on the links for further details.


Error	Information about errors during data delivery.
SSLServerAuthentication	Fired after the server presents its certificate to the client.
SSLStatus	Shows the progress of the secure connection.

Configuration Settings

The following is a list of configuration settings for the component with short descriptions. Click on the links for further details.


AcceptEncoding	Used to tell the server which types of content encodings the client supports
AllowHTTPCompression	This property enables HTTP compression for receiving data
Authorization	The Authorization string to be sent to the server
EncodeURL	If set to true the URL will be encoded by the component
GetOn302Redirect	If set to true the component will perform a GET on the new location
HTTPVersion	The version of HTTP used by the component
IfModifiedSince	A date determining the maximum age of the desired document
KeepAlive	Determines whether the HTTP connection is closed after completion of the request
MaxHeaders	Instructs component to save the amount of headers specified that are returned by the server after a Header event has been fired
MaxHTTPCookies	Instructs component to save the amount of cookies specified that are returned by the server when a SetCookie event is fired
ProxyAuthorization	The authorization string to be sent to the proxy server
ProxyAuthScheme	The authorization scheme to be used for the proxy
ProxyPassword	A password if authentication is to be used for the proxy
ProxyPort	Port for the proxy server (default 80)
ProxyServer	Name or IP address of a proxy server (optional)
ProxyUser	A user name if authentication is to be used for the proxy
TransferredDataLimit	The maximum number of incoming bytes to be stored by the component
UsePlatformHTTPClient	Whether or not to use the platform HTTP client
UserAgent	Information about the user agent (browser)
UseWinInet	If set, the WinInet API is used for retrieving the URL
UseWinInetCookies	Controls whether to send and accept cookies when making HTTP requests through WinInet
MaxLineLength	The maximum amount of data to accumulate when no EOL is found
FirewallAutoDetect	Tells the component whether or not to automatically detect and use firewall system settings, if available
FirewallHost	Name or IP address of firewall (optional)
FirewallListener	If true, the component binds to a SOCKS firewall as a server (IPPort only)
FirewallPassword	Password to be used if authentication is to be used when connecting through the firewall
FirewallPort	The TCP port for the FirewallHost;
FirewallUser	A user name if authentication is to be used connecting through a firewall
FirewallType	Determines the type of firewall to connect through
TcpNoDelay	Whether or not to delay when sending packets
ReuseSSLSession	Determines if the SSL session is reused
SSLCipherStrength	The minimum cipher strength used for bulk encryption
SSLEnabledProtocols	Used to enable/disable the supported security protocols
SSLProvider	The name of the security provider to use
SSLSecurityFlags	Flags that control certificate verification
OpenSSLCADir	The path to a directory containing CA certificates
OpenSSLCAFile	Name of the file containing the list of CA's trusted by your application
OpenSSLCipherList	A string that controls the ciphers to be used by SSL
OpenSSLPrngSeedData	The data to seed the pseudo random number generator (PRNG)
AbsoluteTimeout	Determines whether timeouts are inactivity timeouts or absolute timeouts
FirewallData	Used to send extra data to the firewall
InBufferSize	The size in bytes of the incoming queue of the socket
OutBufferSize	The size in bytes of the outgoing queue of the socket
CodePage	The system code page used for Unicode to Multibyte translations (Windows/COM only)