tiny-paypal

Tiny PayPal

The missing PayPal tool for Node

PayPal has literally A TON of documentation, but little to none is targeted for NodeJS users.

This is a dead-simple tool to create payments using the modern and elegant version of PayPal, solving hours of tedious research, trial and error.

Install the module

npm install tiny-paypal

Initialize it

var paypal = require('tiny-paypal');

paypal.init({
	CLIENT_ID: 'YOUR-ID-HERE', 
	CLIENT_SECRET: 'YOUR-SECRET-HERE',
	SUCCESS_CALLBACK_URL: 'https://your-server.com/payment-success',
	CANCELED_CALLBACK_URL: 'https://your-server.com/payment-canceled',
	SANDBOX: true,  // set to false for production
	
	CURRENCY: 'EUR'  // optional
});

Create a simple payment

If you just want to charge an amount of money, you can use this function:

paypal.createPayment({
    amount: 10,
    description: "MyShop cart",
    
    // optional fields
    
    shipping: 5,    // 0 by default
    discount: 4,    // 0 by default
    discountText: "Discount text", // "Discount" by default
    currency: 'EUR',    // overrides the value set in 'init()'
    successURL: "https://your-server.com/payment-success",    // overrides the value set in 'init()'  
    cancelURL: "https://your-server.com/payment-canceled"    // overrides the value set in 'init()'
})
.then(function(result){
	// Handle the result here
	console.log("Payment ID:", result.id);
	console.log("Redirect URL", result.redirect);  // Redirect your client's browser to this URL
	console.log("Info URL", result.get);  // Get the payment info from this URL
	console.log("Execute URL", result.execute);  // Execute the payment through this URL (payment approval is needed)
})
.catch(function(error){
	// Handle the error here
	console.error(error);
})

Create a payment based on your cart

To display a list of the items purchased on the PayPal screen, you can use TinyPaypal like this:

paypal.createCartPayment({
    cart: [
        {
            name: "Product 1",
            description: "Product 1 description here", // optional
            price: 3,
            quantity: 10, // optional
            sku: '#1234'  // optional
        },{
            name: "Product 2",
            description: "Product 2 description here", // optional
            price: 4,
            quantity: 5, // optional
            sku: '#1235' // optional
        }
    ],
    description: "MyShop cart",
    
    // optional fields
    
    shipping: 5,
    discount: 4,
    discountText: "Discount text", // "Discount" by default
    currency: 'EUR',    // overrides the value set in 'init()'
    successURL: "https://your-server.com/payment-success",    // overrides the value set in 'init()'  
    cancelURL: "https://your-server.com/payment-canceled"    // overrides the value set in 'init()'
})
.then(function(result){
	// Handle the result here
	console.log("Payment ID:", result.id);
	console.log("Redirect URL", result.redirect);  // Redirect your client's browser to this URL
	console.log("Info URL", result.get);  // Get the payment info from this URL
	console.log("Execute URL", result.execute);  // Execute the payment through this URL (payment approval is needed)
})
.catch(function(error){
	// Handle the error here
	console.error(error);
})

Redirect

Next, you need to redirect your client to result.redirect. When the client validates the payment, PayPal will redirect the browser to the SUCCESS_CALLBACK_URL with three query string parameters: paymentId, token and PayerID.

Get these parameters and execute the payment

paypal.executePayment('the-payment-id', 'the-token', 'the-payer-id')
.then(function(result){
	// Handle the result here
	console.log("Response:", result);
})
.catch(function(error){
	// Handle the error here
	console.error(error);
})

This will log into the console something like:

Response: { id: 'PAY-1NA38651KW861730HK6HVNHQ',
	intent: 'sale',
	state: 'approved',
	cart: '9H784395YC168205K',
	payer: 
	{ payment_method: 'paypal',
		status: 'VERIFIED',
		payer_info: 
			{
				email: '[e-mail]',
				first_name: 'Test',
				last_name: 'Buyer',
				payer_id: 'MEFWRPEQDM(2J',
				shipping_address: [Object],
				country_code: 'ES',
				billing_address: [Object] } },
	transactions: 
	[ { amount: [Object],
			payee: [Object],
			description: 'ACME Corporation Store',
			item_list: [Object],
			related_resources: [Object] } ],
	create_time: '2016-07-20T11:45:47Z',
	links: 
	[ { href: 'https://api.sandbox.paypal.com/v1/payments/payment/PAY-1NA38651KW861730HK6HVNHQ',
			rel: 'self',
			method: 'GET' 
		}
	]
}

Useful Documentation and tools

• https://developer.paypal.com/docs/integration/web/accept-paypal-payment/
• https://devblog.paypal.com/building-a-web-app-with-node-js-the-paypal-sdk-part-2/
• https://devtools-paypal.com/guide/pay_paypal/curl?interactive=ON&env=sandbox