PayPal siliently switches to *authorize* when using repeat payments

[judgej]

This is about functionality that is not clear, an d can lead to some lost transactions. The fix is to thrown an exception for certain requested PayPal actions, forcing the site developer to be more explicit with their settings. That's the summary, details follow.

Datatrans supports the ability to capture a credit card token that can be used for multiple payments such as subscriptions. This works across all the credit card types, but works differently for PayPal. For all other credit card types, a card reference can be captured when issuing either an authorize or a purchase. When doing an authorize, the payment must be captured as a separate action. When doing a purchase the capture is build in.

For credit cards, it does not matter whether doing an authorize or a purchase, the card reference can be captured in either case. For PayPal, card references cannot be captured, but an "order reference" can. The order reference is used in the same way as a card reference, so the functional equivalent exists for PayPal.

However, when PayPal is asked to capture an order reference, PayPal will switch to authorize-only mode, even when asked to perform a purchase. So invisible to the merchant shop, no capture is performed, even if the shop asks for it. The shop is then told that everything worked fine. Some developers may not be aware of this, and even just documenting it can remain a risk.

So the solution is to disable card-reference capture just for PayPal and the purchase method; if chosen then an exception will be thrown. Capturing a card reference for PayPal when using the authorize method will work as before (no exception will be thrown).

[judgej]

This was released in version 3.0.5