Paypal REST API: How to retrieve payment ID after user has approved the payment.

Question

By following the guide on https://developer.paypal.com/webapps/developer/docs/integration/web/accept-paypal-payment/ , I have successfully created a payment and redirect the user to approve it.

The created payment is something look like bellow, and I save it in user's session for further reference.

{
  "id": "PAY-6RV70583SB702805EKEYSZ6Y",
  "create_time": "2013-03-01T22:34:35Z",
  "update_time": "2013-03-01T22:34:36Z",
  "state": "created",
  "intent": "sale",
  "payer": {
    "payment_method": "paypal"
  },
  "transactions": [
    {
      "amount": {
        "total": "7.47",
        "currency": "USD",
        "details": {
          "subtotal": "7.47"
        }
      },
      "description": "This is the payment transaction description."
    }
  ],
  "links": [
    {
      "href": "https://api.sandbox.paypal.com/v1/payments/payment/PAY-6RV70583SB702805EKEYSZ6Y",
      "rel": "self",
      "method": "GET"
    },
    {
      "href": "https://www.sandbox.paypal.com/webscr?cmd=_express-checkout&token=EC-60U79048BN7719609",
      "rel": "approval_url",
      "method": "REDIRECT"
    },
    {
      "href": "https://api.sandbox.paypal.com/v1/payments/payment/PAY-6RV70583SB702805EKEYSZ6Y/execute",
      "rel": "execute",
      "method": "POST"
    }
  ]
}

After user approved the payment, Paypal will redirect the user to the return_url. For example, http://<return_url>?token=EC-60U79048BN7719609&PayerID=7E7MGXCWTTKK2.

In order to execute the payment, a POST request has to made to https://api.sandbox.paypal.com/v1/payments/payment/{payment_id}/execute/.

Question

The only two pieces of information provided from Paypal in the URL is token and PayerID. How can I find the corresponding payment_id?

Possible Solution

The token is part of the approval_url, parse the URL and store the token -> payment relationship can solve the problem. But I'm looking for a better solution that doesn't require parsing.

Answer 1

I think the paypal documentation isn't clear about this. But you can do something simple to resolve your problem passing de PaymentID through a parameter in your return url.

Like this: return_url = 'http://www.yourdomain.com/paypal/success/?paymentID=PAY-1234567'

When the Paypal redirect to your site, then, it will return the paymentID together with the other parameters.