Member area + paypal IPN

ice_cracker

Hi,
I'm thinking of setting up a paid-for members area on my site, and want to use paypal's IPN system to instantly create and activate accounts, but am a little confised about how it works...

I want users to beable to fill in a form with their desired username and password which will then be stored in a mysql database, then they'll be forwarded to paypal, to fill in payment details, then if the payment is successful it will somehow (by magic? 😃) change a feild in their databse row to show the account is paid for and activated (which will then allow them to login)

Has anyone got some suggestions how to do this, or an example script that I could use/get ideas from.

Another way that it could be done is; a user clicks a paypal link, it takes them to paypal they fill in their payment details, if their payment is successful paypal's IPN then posts to my server and enters a new row into a database with their transaction ID and paypal email address, then my server sends an email to their paypal email address with a link for them to click, which will then allow them to update the row in the db containing their transaction ID with a username and password and some other details (I can handle this part)

Which of these mentods (if any) will work, and which would be best?

Any help or examples of doing either of these methods (or something similar) would be most appreciated.

Thanks 🙂

jim_keller

You're welcome to try the PaypalIPN object I wrote for PHP. There's quite a bit of functionality, actually.

download the class:
http://jim.centerfuse.net/PaypalIPN/PaypalIPN.class.phps

this is the file that your IPN would post back to (the one you specify in Paypal's IPN setup):
http://jim.centerfuse.net/PaypalIPN/complete_transaction.phps

follow the comments at the top of complete_transaction.phps. Also make sure you scroll to the bottom and fill in the functions there.

Useful methods in the object that aren't used in that example:

full_post_redirect() - allows you to keep your POST information from one page to the next, in case you need to jump to another script before going to paypal.

individualize() - for use with shopping carts & multiple quantities

If anyone's interested, I can document further.

Hope this helps.

-Jim Keller

ice_cracker

Thanks for the reply

I'll take a look at those now 🙂