S-OT: PayPal fP Integration (was Re: FW: The FP Room: Meeting withKen and Laura Brody)

[Fairlight]

When asked his whereabouts on Mon, Jan 10, 2005 at 08:29:46AM -0500,
John Esak took the fifth, drank it, and then slurred:
> 
> Hey, there you go Mark, you're first sale... or freebie demo, so they talk
> up how great it is and get you 30 more sales... :-)

You read my mind.  :)

You should see my TODO list.  *laugh*  Actually, I managed to bump a few
items off late tonight despite taking Sunday mostly off.  I'm guessing I'll
have the MySQL version done by the end of the week at this rate, then go
for a quick spin with MSSQL and PgSQL if I can figure them out quickly
enough to make it work.  Maybe even Access.  That way, one program can work
with four databases--far more versatile.  Since I'm in the middle of doing
that anyway, I may as well finish it and maybe even make it that versatile,
if possible.  The SQL stuff doesn't interest you (or most), I know.  The
following might though...

Then I'll port the data population module to fP.  I'm trying to wrap
my head around how to do some things that I'm currently doing.  I may
be asking for more efficient ways to do some lookup-based algorithms
around here or in the room.  The way I see it going, I'll have to make
one pass through all fields to grab the number of transactions in a
multi-transaction submission based on field contents.  THEN I will have to
use the lookup (same or restarted...whichever is best) to actually sift
through for all the salient field contents suffixed with a _N where N is
the current iteration of the loop from 1..MAX, MAX being how many were
supplied.

It seems like walking back and forth with getnext might be too resource
intensive (not to mention trying to keep track of where you are manually).
It also seems strange to re-open the lookup, although that makes the most
sense to me so far, as I think I understood it to be a case where the file
isn't really closed if it's being reused or used elsewhere.

If I can get that kind of algorithm working efficiently in fP though, I
think the rest will be cake.  I just need the best way to do it, really.
That's the only real technical gotcha I can foresee at this point in time.
If someone has a suggestion, I'm all ears.  I'd rather hear it -before- I
make an incorrect choice, than after.  :)

Of course, -then- there's the documentaton.  PayPal's Integration Guide
tells only half the story about the spec, believe me.  It's technically
accurate, but it's semantically deficient as pertains to the variable
manner in which data is presented dependant on transaction type.  Let's
just say testing every possible permutation really pays off.

It'll get done.  It's certainly 100% feasible, IMHO.  And I'm motivated.
Now I just need to squeeze many hours into the few available to me.  :)
Anyone have a bzip2 for time?  :)

Okay, I'm for bed...you can tell I'm a bit punchy.

mark->
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