What on earth is this serial-number google is sending me?

Question

I am using the google checkout api to process orders in an online store that i am building.

i ran into an issue today that i cannot move past! oi i am getting such a huge headache from this! So here is the problem:

when i send google an xml-based order, they send me back a grip of information that looks something like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    <checkout-redirect xmlns="http://checkout.google.com/schema/2"
    serial-number="981283ea-c324-44bb-a10c-fc3b2eba5707">
    <redirect-url>
        https://checkout.google.com/view/buy?o=shoppingcart&amp;shoppingcart=8572098456
    </redirect-url>
</checkout-redirect>

I have been able to use this in the past, and i have just passed in <merchant-private-data> tags in my order request to specify unique orders. i just use the redirect-url above to send them to a page where they complete their order, and google sends me a notification with a serial-number. I pass back the serial-number along with my merchant_id and merchant_key and they send me back a bunch of xml with my order data.

I have already gotten my application working like this. the problem is that now i am trying to make my application so that you can plug in your google merchant id and key and my application will handle the order processing for you. the problem here is that when they send me the serial number in the notification, I don't know which merchant-key or merchant-id to send back to them. And now we have come full-circle to the basis of my question, which is this:

what is this serial-number that google is sending me??? it is definitely not the serial number that the notification api is sending me (unless i have to decode somehow?). Google gives no explanation in their documentation about this and all of the other questions regarding it can be answered by simply using merchant-private-data tags.

Please somebody! some wizard out there! Please help me!!!

EdSF EdSF · Accepted Answer · 2012-10-23T05:12:53

The serial number is only relevant to a specific merchant - based on your post, you can equate this to a "specific callback api url" (in serial number notification).

If/when you ask a merchant to give you their mid/key, you'll have to provide them (merchant) the (unique) url they have to provide to Google.

So the "relationship" will be "mid/key/callback api url".

Hth.

What on earth is this serial-number google is sending me?

1 Answers