Paypal IPN simulator does not include charset

Question

The paypal IPN simulator does not seem to include charset variable in the POST to notify_url. My code currently fails because it assumes the charset should always be present. NOTE, that so far I noticed this issue only with simulator.

Is it optional? If so, then what should be the default encoding if not present? If it is not optional, then how to have simulator send the charset out?

If someone could point me to the documentation that confirms his point it would be even better!

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

It's listed under Transaction Variables, which means it should appear in all transactions, and it's not described as optional. However the PayPal documentation and the IPN simulator are known to disagree in other respects, for example date formats. You should treat it as optional for the purposes of testing.

But don't do too much testing with the simulator. It's really only good for establishing that your verified callback works in my opinion. You ned to do real testing and your research into what fields are present etc using sandbox accounts.