Question

I am looking to build an application where the user will have the ability to purchase products from my site. The purchase will include physical items they are purchasing, shipping, taxes if applicable, etc. I know PayPal has numerous options available for payments, one of which is Web Services the other is simply redirecting to their site. I would like for the user’s experience to be as seamless as possible, but I do not want to get into the business of storing credit cards etc.

If I do handle the transaction on my server (with a secure connection/SSL), would I be imposing a risk for even passing the credit card information to their service for processing?

Answer 1

Play! Framework v1.2 has a very good support for WebServices. There’s no paypal module for Play, but the code is not too complex to write. I implemented the Web service solution for our job board (www.express-board.fr) and it took 3 days.

First : the user is always redirected to the Paypal website. There’s no solution with no paypal client facing. If you go for the Webservice solution (developer.paypal.com) you can however customize the paypal web page with your logo. Not the best solution, but it works.

On the Play side, here is a sample code for a checkout method, that uses the Paypal Web service :

 public static void checkout() {
    Double amount = Double.parseDouble(session.get("amount"));
    Long userId = Long.parseLong(session.get("user-id"));
    User user = User.findById(userId);
    if (user != null) {
        renderArgs.put("user", user);
    }

    // we calculate the net and gross amount with French V.A.T (19.6%)
    BigDecimal amountBD = new BigDecimal(amount * 1.196);
    BigDecimal netAmountBD = new BigDecimal(amount);
    BigDecimal taxAmountBD = amountBD.subtract(netAmountBD);

    String netAmount = netAmountBD.setScale(2, BigDecimal.ROUND_HALF_EVEN).toString();
    String totalAmount = amountBD.setScale(2, BigDecimal.ROUND_HALF_EVEN).toString();
    String taxAmount = taxAmountBD.setScale(2, BigDecimal.ROUND_HALF_EVEN).toString();

    String subject="Publication d'une offre d'emploi";


// Paypal Web service callback executed by Play!  
// I have a paypal.api.server configuration property with prod and sandbox server

    WS.HttpResponse res = WS.url(Play.configuration.get("paypal.api.server").toString() +
            "&USER=%s" +
            "&PWD=%s" +
            "&SIGNATURE=%s" +
            "&VERSION=%s" +
            "&METHOD=%s" +
            "&PAYMENTREQUEST_0_PAYMENTACTION=%s" +
            "&LANDINGPAGE=%s" +
            "&SOLUTIONTYPE=%s" +
            "&EMAIL=%s" +
            "&FIRSTNAME=%s" +
            "&LASTNAME=%s" +
            "&STREET=%s" +
            "&STREET2=%s" +
            "&CITY=%s" +
            "&ZIP=%s" +
            "&STATE=%s" +
            "&PAYMENTREQUEST_0_CURRENCYCODE=%s" +
            "&MAXAMT=%s" +
            "&PAYMENTREQUEST_0_AMT=%s" +
            "&PAYMENTREQUEST_0_ITEMAMT=%s" +
            "&PAYMENTREQUEST_0_TAXAMT=%s" +
            "&PAYMENTREQUEST_0_DESC=%s" +
            "&L_PAYMENTREQUEST_0_NAME0=%s" +
            "&L_PAYMENTREQUEST_0_NUMER0=%s" +
            "&L_PAYMENTREQUEST_0_DESC0=%s" +
            "&L_PAYMENTREQUEST_0_AMT0=%s" +
            "&L_PAYMENTREQUEST_0_QTY0=%s" +

            "&NOSHIPPING=%s" +
            "&LOCALECODE=%s" +
            "&RETURNURL=%s" +
            "&CANCELURL=%s" +
            "&ADDROVERRIDE=%s" +
            "&BRANDNAME=%s"
            ,
            //-------
            Play.configuration.get("paypal.api.username").toString(),
            Play.configuration.get("paypal.api.password").toString(),
            Play.configuration.get("paypal.api.signature").toString(),
            "69.0", // API Version
            "SetExpressCheckout", //Method
            "Sale",
            "Billing",
            "Sole",
            user.email,
            "" + user.fullname,
            "" + user.fullname,
            "" + user.postalAddress,
            "" + user.postalAddress2,
            "" + user.city,
            "" + user.zip,
            "None",
            "EUR",
            totalAmount, //MaxAMT
            totalAmount, //amount.toString()
            netAmount, //PAYMENTREQUEST_n_ITEMAMT
            taxAmount,
            subject,
            //---------
            "Item name",
            "1",
            subject,
            netAmount,
            "1",
            //---------
            "1",
            "FR",
            Play.configuration.get("paypal.returnUrl").toString(),
            Play.configuration.get("paypal.cancelPay").toString(),
            "1", //ADDROVERRIDE
            "eXpress-Board pour Innoteria"
    ).get();


    String message = res.getString();
    PaypalResponse paypalResponse = new PaypalResponse(message);
    if (paypalResponse.isSuccess()) {
        Payment payment = new Payment();
        payment.userId = user.id;
        payment.totalAmount = totalAmount;
        payment.netAmount = netAmount;
        payment.taxAmount = taxAmount;
        payment.token = paypalResponse.getToken();
        payment.correlationID = paypalResponse.getCorrelationID();
        payment.save();

        redirect(Play.configuration.get("paypal.api.http").toString() + "/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_express-checkout&token=" + paypalResponse.getToken());
    }

    Logger.error("Error on SetExpressCheckout with: ");
    for (String tokens : message.split("&")) {
        try {
            Logger.error(URLDecoder.decode(tokens, "UTF-8"));
        } catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
        }
    }

    error("Error from Paypal");

}

Hope it helps