2009

PayPal NVP API Overview
Basic Steps
12 08 April 2009 Name-Value Pair API Developer Guide
Integrate Using an SDK
You can integrate with the NVP API using a software development kit (SDK). SDKs are
provided for Java and ASP.NET. The SDKs provide simple functions for integrating with the
NVP API.
Basic Steps
This section describes the basic steps for programming with the PayPal NVP API.
During application development, your application communicates with the PayPal Sandbox test
environment. “Taking Your Application Live” on page 13 describes how to move your
application to the live PayPal environment.
Create a Web Application
Your NVP API implementation usually runs in a web application. You can write your own
application or use one of the samples as a starting point.
Get API Credentials
To access the PayPal API, you need API credentials, either an API signature or API certificate,
that identify you.
Use the following sample API signature and password in your sample programs that run in the
PayPal Sandbox test environment.
NOTE: If you are using the samples, this signature is already in the code.
Details of the Sample API Signature
Create and Post the Request
Create an NVP request string and post it to PayPal sandbox server. Add code to your web
application to do the following tasks:
1. URL-encode the name and value parameters in the request to ensure correct transmission
of all characters. This is described in “URL-Encoding” on page 14.
2. Construct the NVP API request string as described in “Request Format” on page 15. The
NVP format is described in “NVP Format” on page 14.
API username sdk-three_api1.sdk.com
API password QFZCWN5HZM8VBG7Q
API signature A-IzJhZZjhg29XQ2qnhapuwxIDzyAZQ92FRP5dqBzVesOkzbdUONzmOU