Just wondering if anyone has used curl to successfully log into paypal? I've only got up to the point of saving a paypal cookie but not much after that.

I have a feeling I may have to parse the cookie to get the dispatch value.

You should check out pdncommunity (http://pdncommunity.com) esp this (http://www.pdncommunity.com/pdn/board/message?board.id=api&message.id=247&jump=true) post.

Ah but I'm not interested in the SDK, I'd like to login to my own paypal account and if possible, retrieve my transactions in CSV format.

If you're not interested in using a SDK designed to do this, I guess your only option is to write it from scratch and screen scrap everything.

I don't think that type of thing is exposed as an API. If it is you'd need the Pro account.

I never said I was interested in an API :) I'm just wondering how possible it is to login to paypal via CURL. I know it can be done but so far my attempts have failed. I've saved the cookie but it refuses to authenticate me when I try to logon using it.

Got it, turns out you have to go through 3 pages before you can view your paypal account details

Steps
1. Get first login page to set basic cookies
2. Post Login Data to Page https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr
3. Parse the login page to get the redirect
4. curl the URL you just parsed
5. Parse the data on paypal's page :)

A bit clunky but it works

Old topic I found in Google here. My question in regards to the above:

Do Paypal's terms of service etc prohibit logging in using the likes of Curl in any way? I suppose if you did things like set a common browser agent then you could hide tracks, but I'd rather just play by the rules. My use would be to display the account balance in our own single control panel - then withdraw those funds to our bank account in one click when required. I'd also be using PHP and Curl, shouldn't be a problem I don't think but don't want to cause any problems and have the account disabled.