I am trying to get custom date to pass to PayPal - php

Question

I am trying to get this line of product info here to pass into PayPal form using the custom varible <input type="hidden" name="custom" value="SansburyTech|Purchase of a ToolCart|Dewalt Roller|SKU:164604646|Cost:163.50"> but its not happening?
Is there something I am doing wrong or overlooking? Here on PayPalDocs it says specifically: The following are pass-through variables: custom or item_number or item_number_x or invoice
Here is my complete HTML Paypal form as an example;
<form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post" style="margin:0;padding:0;" target="PayPal">
<input type="hidden" name="business" value="">
<input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_xclick">
<input type="hidden" name="item_name" value="Toolcart">
<input type="hidden" name="item_number" value="Dewalt Roller">
<input
type="hidden"
name="custom"
value="SansburyTech|Purchase of a ToolCart|Dewalt Roller|SKU:164604646|Cost:163.50">
<input type="hidden" name="amount" value="244.50">
<input type="hidden" name="currency_code" value="USD">
<input type="hidden" name="receiver_email" value="">
<input type="hidden" name="return" value="https://toolcart.info/pickup">
<input type="hidden" name="no_note" value="0">
<input type="image" src="/wp-content/themes/toolcart-theme/images/paypal.png" class="img-fluid" border="0" name="submit" alt="PayPal - The safer, easier way to pay online!">
<img border="0" src="https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_US/i/scr/pixel.gif" width="1" height="1">
</form>
Will be incredibly grateful for any answers!
~ Thank-you!

Answer 1

Converting my comment to an answer (for that sweet sweet karma).
The OP was looking for the custom variable to appear in the PayPal-generated e-mail messages that get sent back to the merchant account-holder (or to the customer). This won't work because PayPal does not include the custom variable in any e-mail messages: it's only included in IPN messages.

Answer 2

Usually the best solution is to pass only a unique identifier and store the rest in own your database.
But if you must pass multiple values in the arbitrary custom field, the pipes in your example seem problematic. Use base64 encoding or a different delimiter--JSON format is a common choice here, then you can simply decode it into an array when receiving the IPN.