PayPal supports one item_number per product. Do you need to pass 5 pieces of data through for each product? Or do you have 5 products?

Patrick Breitenbach
PayPal, Inc.
Dev Net: https://www.paypal.com/pdn

Then you should have 5 Add to Cart or Buy buttons each with a different "item_number".

I don't have enough familiarity with ColdFusion database access, however.

Patrick Breitenbach
PayPal, Inc.
Dev Net: https://www.paypal.com/pdn

If anyone has a CF solution for this please share it. Thank YOU!

:) I saw your post and thought - hey, I can write that for this guy!

so here we go - oh, and this first section should work as I did test it just to make sure - I also included a bunch of comments so you could understand what is happening along the way.

I don't come through here - but I'll try to check back and make sure things worked out. otherwise - you can reach me through my biz site at http://www.WebAndAudio.com



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1) How do I parse the multiple values from the IPN and then insert it into the DB field seperated by commas?
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<!--- Set an empty variable for the list --->
<CFSET ItemList="">
<!--- run a loop over the fieldnames to extract only the ones called 'item_numberX' --->
<CFLOOP INDEX="TheField" list="#Form.FieldNames#">
<!--- item_number is 11 char long - so we make sure it's lower case and chop
the variable's name down before checking - and check if it is item_number,
if it is, you add it to the list --->
<cfif LCase(Left(Trim(TheField),11)) IS "item_number">
<CFSET ItemList = ListAppend(ItemList, Trim(Evaluate(TheField)))>
</cfif>
</CFLOOP>
<!--- now we have a list of item_numberX to insert into a field --->
<!--- use ItemList as your inserting variable --->

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2) How do I then later retrive and separate these values from the db field and display them like:
item_number1
item_number2
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<cfoutput query="YourSearch">
Order: #OrderID# Date:#DateFormat(OrderDate, 'mm/dd/yyyy')#
The following items were ordered:
</cfoutput>
<!--- run your query and set your orderId variable
which has the list to equal this db field --->
<cfset ItemList = "#YourSearch.item_numbers#">

<!--- /////////////// Option A \\\\\\\\\\\\\\ --->
<!--- If you wanted, right here you could ad a query on your item ids --->
<CFQUERY name="GetItems" datasource="#DataSource#">
Select *
From tblItems
Where ItemID IN (#ItemList#)
</CFQUERY>
<cfoutput query="GetItems">
<LI> #ItemName# - #ItemCost#</LI>
</cfoutput>

<!--- /////////////// OR Option B \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ --->
<!--- Or Loop over the list - output the index and a line break upon each loop --->
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<CFLOOP INDEX="i" list="#ItemList#">
<cfoutput>#i#<BR></cfoutput>
</CFLOOP>
</BLOCKQUOTE>

Something to try:
This worked for me quite well until a month ago, but now my IPN processing page is not handling the FORM.custom return - no sure why yet. For passing a list of variables to Paypal and then back to your IPN processing page, use the 'custom' field (up to 255 characters). Just pass a list, with delimiters. Then, when the list returns as FORM.custom, parse the list as follows. Then do your DB insert.

Like I said, I am working on a problem with this right now - not sure why it suddently stopped working. Might be the ugly-but-easy-to-read delimiters ::: ?) Try a conventional comma delimiter.

<CFIF IsDefined("FORM.custom")>
<CFOUTPUT>
<!--- custom variable list composed of stud_sysID:::class_title:::classroom_endDate:::classroom_enrollType:::classroom_tuition4Wks:::ClassFeePerQuarter --->
<CFSET custom = #FORM.custom#>
<CFSET stud_sysID = #ListGetAt(custom, 1,":::")#>
<CFSET class_title = #ListGetAt(custom, 2,":::")#>
<CFSET classroom_endDate = #ListGetAt(custom, 3,":::")#>
<CFSET classroom_EnrollType = #ListGetAt(custom, 4,":::")#>
<CFSET classroom_Tuition4Wks = #ListGetAt(custom, 5,":::")#>
<CFSET classFeePerQuarter = #ListGetAt(custom, 6,":::")#>
<CFSET classroom_numbQtrs = #ListGetAt(custom, 7,":::")#>
<CFSET school_ID = #ListGetAt(custom, 8,":::")#>
</CFOUTPUT>
</CFIF>