PayPal IPN - PHP和MySQL

Question

Just a question to make sure I understand this correctly:

When I create my buy now button and I pass all the form fields to PayPal - once the user has finished their transaction as long as I've set up the notify_url to post to, say, the ipn.php file, the user will be redirected to a page on the site defined in the return field, yes?

In other words:

notify_url - Posts transaction information to the specified file.

return - Redirects the user to a defined page.

I know this should be simple enough, I've read the documentation and I've been at this for two weeks. I mean, I've been trying to find the proper solution for about two weeks and I think the IPN option may be it.

I believe, at this point, I'm just over thinking it but I've heard that these fields cancel one another out. Is this true? If so, how do I rectify it?

Please, please, don't send me back to the documentation. I'm so confused by it right now.

Answer 1

These two fields are unrelated to one another.

notify_url exists so that paypal can inform you (not the user) when the user's transaction is complete. It posts a specially-formatted request (the IPN) to the url you specify. This is an out-of-band mechanism that the user will never see.

return redirects the user's browser to the page you specify when his transaction is complete.

You can have one or the other or both fields set.