Webhook Payment Date

[biomedware]

The docs for Webhook Integration define the payment_date as:

Time/Date stamp generated by payment processor, in the format HH:MM:SS Mmm DD, YYYY ZZZ (e.g. 12:34:56 Dec 21, 2012 MST)

Is the timezone abbreviation of MST guaranteed to be static and exist in every payload? Or is the abbreviation dynamic and may change for different payloads?

In other words, since we have to parse the date string into a strongly typed date, I need to know if the timezone abbreviation will always exist with the payment_date field and if the abbreviation will change depending on either the time of year, or the date being submitted from a different server with a different time zone.

FWIW: It would be much easier to deal with if the date was guaranteed to follow the ISO 9601 or RFC 1123 format; or simply be returned in UTC time.

[E-junkie_Guru]

For orders paid through PayPal Standard/Express Checkout, it will be a pass-through of the payment_date exactly as we received it in the IPN from PayPal. Their IPN Documentaion states that timestamp will be in the format HH:MM:SS Mmm DD, YYYY PDT, but I infer that timezone would be PST during Standard Time.

For all other payment methods, we would generate the payment_date timestamp in the same format but with timezone MST, which will always be equivalent to GMT -7 and never be MDT, as we're based in Arizona which does not observe Daylight Saving Time.

[biomedware]

Appreciate the detailed information. Guess I should know by now to look at the PayPal IPN formats, first. Too bad PayPal uses such a non-standardized date format. Thanks again!

[biomedware]

We just encountered an interesting delta in the payment_date format while experimenting with the beta invoice tool. The webhook we received had the following payment information:

payment_date: 2022-08-10
payment_status: Completed
payment_type: Instant

Notice the payment_date does not have the time & timezone components.

Is the different date format expected since this was a non-standard transaction? (invoice / paid cash - I have other questions about the beta invoice feature I'll post in a new topic in the next couple of days.)

For reference, here is the transaction id: cs-2MBYCJ-RGES30BA39AE5AA

[E-junkie_Guru]

Hm, interesting. I'll ask Dev if they could normalize the payment_date value to match the format we use for other Webhook transmissions. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.