How to get PayPal transaction ID from invoice ID - php

Question

I work with an e-commerce website that uses a PayPal checkout component written in PHP. For accounting purposes I want to retrieve some additional information using the PayPal PHP SOAP API.
I found out how to access the transaction using the transaction id and the GetTransactionDetails object:
// snip - include PayPal libraries and set up APIProfile object -
$trans_details =& PayPal::getType('GetTransactionDetailsRequestType');
$tran_id = $_GET['transactionID'];
$trans_details->setTransactionId($tran_id, 'iso-8859-1');
$caller =& PayPal::getCallerServices($profile);
$response = $caller->GetTransactionDetails($trans_details);
$paymentTransDetails = $response->getPaymentTransactionDetails();
// snip - work with transaction details -
However, I need to enhance this so that I can find out the 12-character string transaction id first by using the invoice id which I have available in a local MySQL database (which is also referenced in the transaction on the PayPal website).
I guess that I have to use Transaction Search for that but I don't know how to do this with the PHP SOAP API. How can I retrieve the transaction id for an invoice id?

Answer 1

I dived into the API documentation and managed to find it out.
// snip - include PayPal libraries and set up APIProfile object (variable: profile) -
$trans_search =& PayPal::getType('TransactionSearchRequestType');
// 01/12/201 as an example date, we always need a start date for the API
$start_date_str = '01/12/2011';
$start_time = strtotime($start_date_str);
$iso_start = date('Y-m-d\T00:00:00\Z', $start_time);
$trans_search->setStartDate($iso_start, 'iso-8859-1');
$invoice_ID = '10942456'; // here we insert the invoice ID we know
$trans_search->setInvoiceID($invoice_ID);
$caller =& PayPal::getCallerServices($profile);
$response = $caller->TransactionSearch($trans_search); // execute search
$ptsr = $response->getPaymentTransactions();
$nrecs = sizeof($ptsr);
$ack = $response->getAck();
if( ($ack != ACK_SUCCESS)
&& ($ack != ACK_SUCCESS_WITH_WARNING) )
exit; // jump out on error
if($nrecs == 1){ // check whether we found only one transaction (as expected)
$paymentTransaction = $ptsr[0];
// we found our transaction ID
$transID = $paymentTransaction->getTransactionID();
}else{
// invoice ID not unique?! :-(
exit('Found multiple transactions: '. print_r($ptsr, true)); // jump out
}
// snip - work with transaction ID -

Answer 2

It's easy enough to use the TransactionSearch API to find a transaction by invoice number. All you need to do is send the INVNUM parameter along in the API call to PayPal.
For example (based on PayPal's TransactionSearch PHP sample code):
<?php
/** TransactionSearch NVP example; last modified 08MAY23.
*
* Search your account history for transactions that meet the criteria you specify.
*/
$environment = 'sandbox'; // or 'beta-sandbox' or 'live'
/**
* Send HTTP POST Request
*
* #param string The API method name
* #param string The POST Message fields in &name=value pair format
* #return array Parsed HTTP Response body
*/
function PPHttpPost($methodName_, $nvpStr_) {
global $environment;
// Set up your API credentials, PayPal end point, and API version.
$API_UserName = urlencode('xxxxxxxxxxxx');
$API_Password = urlencode('yyyyyyyyy');
$API_Signature = urlencode('zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz');
$API_Endpoint = "https://api-3t.paypal.com/nvp";
if("sandbox" === $environment || "beta-sandbox" === $environment) {
$API_Endpoint = "https://api-3t.$environment.paypal.com/nvp";
}
$version = urlencode('84.0');
// Set the curl parameters.
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $API_Endpoint);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_VERBOSE, 1);
// Turn off the server and peer verification (TrustManager Concept).
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, FALSE);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, FALSE);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
// Set the API operation, version, and API signature in the request.
$nvpreq = "METHOD=$methodName_&VERSION=$version&PWD=$API_Password&USER=$API_UserName&SIGNATURE=$API_Signature$nvpStr_";
// Set the request as a POST FIELD for curl.
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $nvpreq);
// Get response from the server.
$httpResponse = curl_exec($ch);
if(!$httpResponse) {
exit("$methodName_ failed: ".curl_error($ch).'('.curl_errno($ch).')');
}
// Extract the response details.
$httpResponseAr = explode("&", $httpResponse);
$httpParsedResponseAr = array();
foreach ($httpResponseAr as $i => $value) {
$tmpAr = explode("=", $value);
if(sizeof($tmpAr) > 1) {
$httpParsedResponseAr[$tmpAr[0]] = $tmpAr[1];
}
}
if((0 == sizeof($httpParsedResponseAr)) || !array_key_exists('ACK', $httpParsedResponseAr)) {
exit("Invalid HTTP Response for POST request($nvpreq) to $API_Endpoint.");
}
return $httpParsedResponseAr;
}
Up to here it's all as usual. The only changes to the sample are here:
// Set request-specific fields.
//$transactionID = urlencode('example_transaction_id');
$invoice = urlencode('1234');
// Add request-specific fields to the request string.
//$nvpStr = "&TRANSACTIONID=$transactionID";
$nvpStr = "&INVNUM=$invoice";
Here, by setting a proper STARTDATE:
// Set additional request-specific fields and add them to the request string.
$startDateStr = "01/01/2010"; // in 'mm/dd/ccyy' format
$endDateStr; // in 'mm/dd/ccyy' format
if(isset($startDateStr)) {
$start_time = strtotime($startDateStr);
$iso_start = date('Y-m-d\T00:00:00\Z', $start_time);
$nvpStr .= "&STARTDATE=$iso_start";
}
if(isset($endDateStr)&&$endDateStr!='') {
$end_time = strtotime($endDateStr);
$iso_end = date('Y-m-d\T24:00:00\Z', $end_time);
$nvpStr .= "&ENDDATE=$iso_end";
}
// Execute the API operation; see the PPHttpPost function above.
$httpParsedResponseAr = PPHttpPost('TransactionSearch', $nvpStr);
And here, by adding a simple if statement to trigger whether or not to return the full TransactionSearch API result, or only return the PayPal transaction ID (bla.php?view=minimal):
if($_GET['view'] != "minimal") {
if("SUCCESS" == strtoupper($httpParsedResponseAr["ACK"]) || "SUCCESSWITHWARNING" == strtoupper($httpParsedResponseAr["ACK"])) {
echo('TransactionSearch Completed Successfully: '.print_r($httpParsedResponseAr, true));
} else {
echo('TransactionSearch failed: ' . print_r($httpParsedResponseAr, true));
}
}
else {
// Output only the TransactionID
echo $httpParsedResponseAr['L_TRANSACTIONID0'];
}
?>