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What is the right/recommended way to develop against of PayPal platform:

  • Use the New PayPal SDK (https://www.x.com/developers/paypal/documentation-tools/paypal-sdk-index)
  • Use the legacy PayPal SDK (which is quite old right now)
  • Just send raw HTTPS requests following NVP protocol (in the end they are just REST-like API), and do not depend on any official API (just depend on the official NVP protocol description)

Which one is considered the right way to go?

Aliaksandr Kazlou
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2 Answers2

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Just wanted to post out here for future references that the latest SDK refresh has an update that fixes the bug mentioned above. Also the SDK have been streamlined especially knocking down a lot of boiler plate code that was present earlier. Download the SDK's from here https://www.x.com/developers/paypal/documentation-tools/paypal-sdk-index - Prasanna A

Prasanna_PayPal
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SDK's are great when they're easy to work with and are bug free. Unfortunately, PayPal's SDK's don't always fit this, so I've always preferred generating raw requests myself and hitting the API directly.

I work with PHP mostly, so that turned into me creating my own class library. If you're using PHP I would recommend you take a look at it. It makes integrating all of PayPal's API's very quick and easy, and I maintain it regularly.

Otherwise, I'd take a look at their SDK's and see how they work out for you. If you have a good experience with them, by all means, I'd recommend using them. If you find that you're running in to silly bugs (for example, GetExpressCheckoutDetails in their SDK doesn't parse out item details correctly) you may decide to use your own stuff.

Drew Angell
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  • Thanks, Andrew. I use Java, and I tried the New SDK, it is really really verbose, and class names are really long, and code becomes easily unreadable (in my taste). Just one more question: what are the ways to pay with credit card with PayPal? Only DirectPayment? Is it possible to pay with credit card using ExpressCheckout? So, user will be redirected to the PayPal and don't need to have the account. I know that you can generate Buy Now, or Subscribe buttons, but I would like to know more. Thank you. – Aliaksandr Kazlou Nov 20 '12 at 08:40
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    In your SetExpressCheckout request set SOLUTIONTYPE=Sole and LANDINGPAGE=Billing. This will force a full credit card form to be displayed on the checkout page at PayPal so users can enter a credit card if they don't have a PayPal account, and they won't be forced to create one. – Drew Angell Nov 20 '12 at 18:41
  • Yes, right. I also found it here: http://9seeds.com/tech/paypal-express-checkout-and-credit-cards/. In my case I want to make RecurringPayments, but according to this post http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8992244/paypal-express-checkout-subscription-using-credit-card-payment, this is not possible with SetExpressCheckout. Is it true? Or something has changed since then? – Aliaksandr Kazlou Nov 20 '12 at 19:09
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    Yeah, when using recurring payments the user has to have or create a PayPal account. You would need to use Payments Pro for recurring payments with credit cards. – Drew Angell Nov 20 '12 at 21:30