This page describes how to check that you are able to sell your software keys through the system.
There are three methods to test the system :
-
Use a second account to purchase a product.
The simplest method is to buy one of your own products from another PayPal account. You cannot purchase an item from yourself, so you need to use a friend's account, or set up another account. Once you have made the payment and checked that everything has worked, you can reverse the payment.
This is a full test on the live system, and you may want to set up a special product costing a low value such as $0.05.
-
Use my local test IPN page
I have built in a 'local' ipn test page from where you can test the basic operation of the system but without going through PayPal. When you use this method, the script does not wait for the IPN result to be returned from PayPal but always sets it to VERIFIED hence bypassing PayPal.
You can test all aspects of the system, the emails, the updating of the database with sales information, the downloading of a purchased product and so on, but it does not test the exchange of IPN data to and from the PayPal site.
-
Use my test via the PayPal IPN Sandbox.
The IPN Sandbox is part of the PayPal developer system and mimics the live PayPal system but where the accounts, money etc are all fictitious. You access it at http://developer.paypal.com where you have to register.
Once registered you will need to set up TWO fictitious accounts. One you will use as the purchaser account and the other as the seller account. In the Global setup display of the PHP-KeyCodes site, there is an entry for the Sandbox seller email. Enter the email address from one of the sandbox accounts you have just created.
Now you can go to the 'Testing' page in the admin area of PHP-KeyCodes. Click on the 'Select Sandbox test' link which displays a test button. When you click on that button, it takes you to the PayPal Developer Network. If you are not logged in using your Developer login you will be asked to log in. Once logged in you can then go back to PHP-KeyCodes, click on the button and it will go straight to the Sandbox test area for you sandbox seller account. You now have to log in with your Sandbox purchaser account which allow you to buy the item.
The purchase should go through in the same way as for a live account. You will see the transaction in PHP-KeyCodes and you should get the email.
This method allows you to test the complete system. I have found it invaluable during development but you may find it unnecessary and prefer testing using the other two methods.