asked on

Unable to parse Variables with PayPal IPN script

Hello everyone

I'm currently trying to modify a simple PayPal IPN script to send me more details about customers transactions, the problem I'm having is when I try to assign variables to local variables the script fails if I attempt to use the variable $address_street. There are no errors the script just doesn't send an email, if I remove the $address_street then it all works fine. Now from what I can gather it has something to do with some of the characters within the address_street variable. for example:

address_street=39+Jackson+Avenue%0D%0ATristam+Downs

Does anyone have any thoughts on how to resolve this.

Cheers

#!/usr/bin/perl
 
# read post from PayPal system and add 'cmd'
read (STDIN, $query, $ENV{'CONTENT_LENGTH'});
$query .= '&cmd=_notify-validate';
 
# post back to PayPal system to validate
use LWP::UserAgent;
$ua = new LWP::UserAgent;
$req = new HTTP::Request 'POST','https://www.sandbox.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr';
$req->content_type('application/x-www-form-urlencoded');
$req->content($query);
$res = $ua->request($req);
 
# split posted variables into pairs
@pairs = split(/&/, $query);
$count = 0;
foreach $pair (@pairs) {
($name, $value) = split(/=/, $pair);
$value =~ tr/+/ /;
$value =~ s/%([a-fA-F0-9][a-fA-F0-9])/pack("C", hex($1))/eg;
$variable{$name} = $value;
$count++;
}
 
# assign posted variables to local variables
$name_first = $variable('first_name');
$name_last = $variable('last_name');
$address_street = $variable('address_street');
$address_city = $variable('address_city');
$payment_status = $variable{'payment_status'};
$payment_amount = $variable{'mc_gross'};
$payment_currency = $variable{'mc_currency'};
$txn_id = $variable{'txn_id'};
$receiver_email = $variable{'receiver_email'};
$payer_email = $variable{'payer_email'};
 
#assign variables for email 
$status = $res->content;
 
if ($res->is_error) {
# HTTP error
}
elsif ($res->content eq 'VERIFIED') {
# check the $payment_status=Completed
# check that $txn_id has not been previously processed
# check that $receiver_email is your Primary PayPal email
# check that $payment_amount/$payment_currency are correct
# process payment
 
open (MAIL, "|/usr/sbin/sendmail -t -oeq") || die("Could not send
email.\n");
    print MAIL "To: payment\@mydomain.co.nz \n";
    print MAIL "From: paypal\@mydomain.co.nz \n";
    print MAIL "Subject: Payment Verification\n\n";
    print MAIL "$name_first \n";
    print MAIL "$name_last \n";
    print MAIL "$address_street \n";
    print MAIL "$address_city \n";
    print MAIL "$payment_status \n";
    print MAIL "$payment_amount \n";
    print MAIL "$payment_currency \n";
    print MAIL "$txn_id \n";
    print MAIL "$receiver_email \n";
    print MAIL "$payer_email \n";
 
close (MAIL);
 
}
elsif ($res->content eq 'INVALID') {
# log for manual investigation
 
open (MAIL, "|/usr/sbin/sendmail -t -oeq") || die("Could not send
email.\n");
    print MAIL "To: payment\@mydomain.co.nz \n";
    print MAIL "From: paypal\@mydomain.co.nz \n";
    print MAIL "Subject: INVALID IPN Notification\n\n";
    print MAIL "IPN returned: $status\n\n";
    print MAIL "Here is the raw IPN string:\n";
    print MAIL "$query\n";
 
close (MAIL);
 
}
else {
# error
}
print "content-type: text/plain\n\n";

Open in new window

Suhas .

# split posted variables into pairs
@pairs = split(/&/, $query);
$count = 0;
foreach $pair (@pairs) {
($name, $value) = split(/=/, $pair);
$value =~ tr/+/ /;
######## add the below line and try ######################
$value =~ tr/%//; #translate the % symbol to blank space in address
#############################
$value =~ s/%([a-fA-F0-9][a-fA-F0-9])/pack("C", hex($1))/eg;
$variable{$name} = $value;
$count++;
}

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

FishMonger

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Tintin

Classic example of a roll your own CGI parsing code that doesn't work properly.

FishMonger's code should work perfectly.

matrixnz

ASKER

Hi everyone

Thanks for your input.

suhasbharadwaj I tried changing the code but it still didn't work unfortunately.

FishMonger, Tintin this code is actually directly from PayPal, the only change is the To and From email addresses. At a glance the script won't verify the transaction from PayPal is that correct? From my limited understanding of PayPals IPN, on completion the customer is returned to a predefined URL in this case paypal.pl (this script) then it appends cmd=_notify-validate to the returned variables and sends this to PayPal, PayPal then returns a Verified or Invalid back to the script depending on the customers transaction. If the transaction is Verified then it processes the Verified Email otherwise the Invalid Email. So to enable the return to PayPal would I just need the following?

Cheers

#!/usr/bin/perl
 
use CGI; 
use strict;
use warnings;
 
# read post from PayPal system and add 'cmd'
read (STDIN, $query, $ENV{'CONTENT_LENGTH'});
my $query .= '&cmd=_notify-validate';
 
# post back to PayPal system to validate
use LWP::UserAgent;
my $ua = new LWP::UserAgent;
my $req = new HTTP::Request 'POST','https://www.sandbox.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr';
my $req->content_type('application/x-www-form-urlencoded');
my $req->content($query);
my $res = $ua->request($req);
 
my $cgi = CGI->new;
my %variable = $cgi->Vars;
 
# assign posted variables to local variables
my $name_first = $variable{'first_name'};
my $name_last = $variable{'last_name'};
my $address_street = $variable{'address_street'};
my $address_city = $variable{'address_city'};
my $payment_status = $variable{'payment_status'};
my $payment_amount = $variable{'mc_gross'};
my $payment_currency = $variable{'mc_currency'};
my $txn_id = $variable{'txn_id'};
my $receiver_email = $variable{'receiver_email'};
my $payer_email = $variable{'payer_email'};

Open in new window

Tintin

You need to get rid of lines 8 and 9 and after line 19 add:

my $url = $cgi->url(-path_info=>1,-query=>1) . '+cmd=_notify-validate';

SOLUTION

Tintin

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Tintin

Note that you may need to change

my $query = $cgi->url(-path_info=>1,-query=>1) . '+cmd=_notify-validate';

to

my $query = $cgi->url(-path_info=>1,-query=>1) . '&cmd=_notify-validate';

If Paypal are using the same buggy, broken CGI parsing code they supply in their examples.

matrixnz

ASKER

Hi everyone

Tintin, I tried your code, but wasn't able to retrieve any informaton from PayPal, tried a few changes but still nothing, however while looking over the posts again to get more insight, I noticed FishMongers post
"On the following hash vars, you're using ( ) parens when you should be using { } braces"
So made those changes to the old code and it started working, because of time constraints I'm unable to spend any further time on this, so I'm going to close the question. I'm going to split the points between you both, thanks so much for your input, it was much appreciated.

Cheers