From: Dave Thomas <dave@...>
Date: 2004-02-01T01:50:56+09:00
Subject: Re: credit card processing


On Jan 31, 2004, at 10:44, Armin Roehrl wrote:

> Hi,
>
>    does anybody have any experience processing credit card
> transactions (eg. online shop) using ruby?
>
> What third-party software do you suggest to use? I guess
> as most protocols used by clearing houses are given away
> only by signing NDAs all is commercial software.

My "Summer Vacation" app used Authorize.net. The basic version of their 
protocol is pretty simple: you populate the final page of your cart 
with some hidden fields (including an MD5 checksum to stop folks 
meddling) and arrange for the POST to go to them. You then get control 
back after they've handled the credit-card side of things. I liked it 
because it meant that my app was never directly involved in credit 
cards: in fact we never see a credit card number.

Authorize.net also have a more advanced interface which is more like 
RPCs: you do the work locally and they just handle authorization and 
capture.

You can download their manuals and code samples (no NDA required) from 
http://www.authorizenet.com/support/


Cheers

Dave