[bop-devel] Business::OnlinePayment

[Ivan Kohler]

On Thu, Jan 03, 2013 at 11:41:51AM -0500, Ted Byers wrote:
> Hello Ivan,
> 
> First, is Business::OnlinePayment still actively developed and maintained?

Yes.


> I took a quick look at the development archives to which you provide a link
> on http://420.am/business-onlinepayment/, and it seems the latest month in
> it is Decenmber 2011.

More frequent updates are not needed.


> I have developed a gateway system which I now want to refactor, and the
> whole Business::OnlinePayment family of packages looks like a good option
> for concommitantly refactoring my existing system and increasing the number
> of processors and gateways supported.  Do you have a test script, with test
> account credentials, that will exercise most, if not all, of these modules,

No.

Some processors support global test accounts, if so, the credentials are 
typically available in the source distribution and used in the test 
suite.

Most processors require you to use a real account in test mode, or a 
private test account.


> including the relatively new 3D secure transactions that most (of the
> gateways I am now dealing with) are beginning to support, or even require?

Not yet well supported by B:OP.  Assistance is welcome.


> I see on http://420.am/business-onlinepayment/ you are identified as
> maintaining what looks like the majority of the derived packages that
> support specific processors.  Can you suggest a couple specific ones to use
> to study exactly how you implemented them,

Not specifically.  Pick ones that are relatively simple (i.e. 
AuthorizeNet is way to complex at this point), have had a release in the 
last couple years and that implement an interface similar to your 
gateway (i.e. XML, regular POST parameters, etc.).

Also you want to refer to notes_for_module_authors and 
notes_for_module_authors_v3


>  so that when I need to develop
> code for a processor that you don't support, I can ensure that what I
> develop is broadly consistent: both cases where the code was relatively
> simple and a couple which were 'problematic'?  The processors I hate
> dealing with are those that use only SOAP transports as none of the Perl
> packages I have examined so far has been adequate to the task (I even has
> to resort to using a PHP slave for a couple as the PHP scripts connected OK
> to their services but none of the Perl packages could even make a
> connection to the SOAP service - if you have examples of SOAP based
> services that you succeeded in connectin to, I'd love to see how you did
> it).

I know several of the processors require SOAP interfaces.  I don't 
recall specifically which ones.


>  I will be examining Mark Wells' package for NMI as that is a gateway
> that I have been working with for years and so it would be a useful point
> of departure for comparing what I have been doing with what your team has
> been doing; but suggestions for other interesting cases would be
> appreciated.
> 
> Finally, it seems obvious to me that .Business::OnlinePayment needs to be
> used in a CGI script, and that for the sake of speed, it really ought to be
> used either in mod_perl or FastCGI, and that it needs DBI (with use of
> cached connection handles) or Apache::DBI, so that the transaction details
> and results can readily be stored in your favourite RDBMS.  Have you tried
> Business::OnlinePayment in either, or both mod_perl and FastCGI?

We use B:OP with mod_perl all the time.


>   With
> permanent processes inthe httpd server, there is a risk of one request's
> data bleeding through to the next if the handler is not carefully written.
> Do you know how well the family of Business::OnlinePayment packages works
> in such an environment?

It typically works fine.  None of our B:OP code uses global variables, 
so the "bleeding" you refer to from sloppy-written scripts is not 
relevant to us personally.


>  If you have tried this, do you have test scripts
> that you can share?

No.


> I'd appreciate any information you can provide.

For further discussion of Business::OnlinePayment, please subscribe to 
the bop-devel at 420.am and post your message there, rather than email me 
personally.


-- 
Ivan Kohler
President and Head Geek, Freeside Internet Services, Inc.  http://freeside.biz/
Debian GNU/Linux developer  |  CPAN author  |  cat person  |  ski addict