Parsing a PayPal REST Credit Card Transaction Response (JSON)

Question

I am using the latest release of PayPal's REST API for PayPal and Credit Card transactions via C# ASP.NET 4.5 framework website. The transactions are working perfectly in the sandbox and the response is displaying all the data associated with the transaction.

What I want to do is display that information in a more user friendly way using labels. How do I parse the JSON response into labels or textboxes?

This is the current code that displays unfriendly response.

try
            {
                APIContext apiContext = Configuration.GetAPIContext();
                Payment createdPayment = pymnt.Create(apiContext);
                CurrContext.Items.Add("ResponseJson", JObject.Parse(createdPayment.ConvertToJson()).ToString(Formatting.Indented));
            }

            catch (PayPal.Exception.PayPalException ex)
            {
                if (ex.InnerException is PayPal.Exception.ConnectionException)
                {
                    Label4.Text = (((PayPal.Exception.ConnectionException)ex.InnerException).Response);
                }

                else
                {
                    Label4.Text = (ex.Message);
                }

                CurrContext.Items.Add("Error", ex.Message);
            }
            CurrContext.Items.Add("RequestJson", JObject.Parse(pymnt.ConvertToJson()).ToString(Formatting.Indented));

Answer 1

I had to do this tonight actually and it was a bit of work. Here is how to at least get a structured object back to utilize and write your own translation class/method.

public class PaypalApiError
{
  public string name { get; set; }
  public string message { get; set; }
  public List<Dictionary<string, string>> details { get; set; }
  public string debug_id { get; set; }
  public string information_link { get; set; }
}

Then you can get a usable object back by modifying your code slightly.

catch (PayPal.Exception.PayPalException ex)
{
    string error = "";
    if (ex.InnerException is PayPal.Exception.ConnectionException)
    {
        var paypalError = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<PaypalApiError>(((PayPal.Exception.ConnectionException)ex.InnerException).Response);
        // method below would parse name/details and return a error message
        error = ParsePaypalError(paypalError);
    }
    else
    {
        error = ex.Message;
    }

    return new PaymentDataResult(){ 
            Success = false,
            Message = error
        };
} 

You would have to create the ParsePaypalError() method to return the errors based on what matters to you. I don't see an easy way to parse it and just display useful messages out of the gate when it will be the most common status'VALIDATION_ERROR'. Here is a link to the error status/messages.

PayPal Rest API Errors