I'm working on a membership website to sell ebooks,its writen in php..

I'm using paypal/alertpay for payments...and i want to be able to keep track of each members' number of sales..

After user completes payment they will be redirected back to sales page...So how do i write the sale to my sites database??



Thanks..

Based on what I have seen done, I think you write the information to the database first with a staus of "pending" or "unpaid". After the sale is completed the ipn portion of your script will change the staus to "paid" or whatever term you define.

Reason it is hard to maintain all the variables while conducting the transaction.

I might be able to help if I better understood your question.

I've written scripts for a number of sites that dealt with the backend for the information that PayPal posts after a transaction; adding information to a database, preparing secure downloads, generating membership info, etc.

I'm not sure, but if you can explain better what you're trying to do, I can give some input. I write in perl, not php, but the process would be the same.

First of all...Thanks for the replies..

I know my first post was very vauge..since then i have done a lot of researching and i'll try and do better with this one..

I have membership website that sells ebooks and software..I need a way to count each members sales and write it to a database..

I thought this was accomplished by IPN.. and the notify_url that is written in the payment form..


i have IPN and notify_url(default) set from a testing alertpay account.. created a button and copied it to a webpage and tested it with success..

However if i change the merchant name to my another account(that does'nt have a notify_url set up) ..and add a notify_url field into the form code ..it will not count the sale in the database even though i get email from alertpay about the transaction.

does alertpay not support notify_url in their payment forms?
if not how can i count members sales?

i could ask that members add my notify_url to their alertpay account but i do not wish to do so for obvious reasons...

some code: works for account that has ALERT URL enabled but not for the second account(even when i add the notify_url in the form )

$ap_merchant = $_POST['ap_merchant'];

$query = ("UPDATE members SET sales = sales + 1 WHERE email = '$ap_merchant' ");
mysql_query($query);
mysql_close();


if anyone know anything about ALERTPAY please reply...

someone pls help out with this problem.

I've tried to email alertpay several times but have not gotten a reply.

I know there must be something simple that I'm overlooking but I have tried everything I know to do and now It's getting very frustrating.

If anyone have any suggestions pls holler..

Thanks--