php help

[oliver9523]

Hi folks, can anyone tell me if I'm heading in the right direction or not?

I'm starting to put together part of a site where the customer enters their Ref#, then clicks 'pay' and triggers some php to look in a mysql database for how much they owe, then this value needs to get put into <input type="hidden" name="amount" value="XX.XX"> and sent to the paypal checkout.

I was thinking if I have "payabill.html" with a text entry box, could I use that to call something like "/records.php?custrefnum" and have the .php file forward on the necessary info to paypal...?

 

[Alex H]

Sounds about the right way of doing things. Does your website make the customer login first? You could make it with sessions if so.

 

[oliver9523]

Nope, no logins, they just enter their ref#, hit pay and it takes them to the paypal payment screen with the amount they owe.

doesn't sound too hard to do but i've only literally been doing php for a few hours so far and sessions sounds a bit advanced at the mo

 

[G3 NYX]

You don't need PHP for that, just set your form to GET instead of POST and make the action PayPal.
When you submit a form with GET it puts the values in the url like you said above:

/records.php?custrefnum=45346&amount=34.66

Just name your fields correctly and make the action "records.php" and it will look like that.

PayPal is a down right hoebag to work with from my experience.

So I think in your case you will have to use POST and use a PHP script to redirect you.
Get a developer account and read some tutorials and play around with the sandbox API.