2009

Name-Value Pair API Developer Guide 08 April 2009 15
PayPal NVP API Overview
Technical Details
URL-Encoding Methods
Request Format
Each NVP request consists of required and optional parameters and their values. Parameter
names are not case sensitive. The examples in this document use UPPERCASE for parameter
names and divide the parameters into required security parameters and body parameters.
General Format of a Request
Language Method
ASP.NET Encode System.Web.HttpUtility.UrlEncode(buffer,
Encoding.Default)
Decode System.Web.HttpUtility.UrlDecode(buffer,
Encoding.Default)
Classic ASP Encode Server.URLEncode
Decode No built-in function. Several implementation examples are available on the
Internet.
Java Encode java.net.URLEncoder.encode
Decode java.net.URLDecoder.decode
PHP Encode urlencode()
Decode urldecode()
ColdFusion Encode URLEncodedFormatstring [, charset ]
Decode URLDecodeurlEncodedString[, charset])
Required Security
Parameters
USER=apiUsername
&PWD=apiPassword
&SIGNATURE=apiSignature
&SUBJECT=optionalThirdPartyEmailAddress
&VERSION=56.0
The following parameters are always required:
USER
PWD
VERSION
The examples show the required security parameters like this:
[requiredSecurityParameters]
Body Parameters &METHOD=methodName
&otherRequiredAndOptionalParameters