PayPal Checkout (javascript) with Smart Payment Buttons create order problem

Question

On my webpage I'm trying to implement a PayPal checkout using JavaScript following the manual: https://developer.paypal.com/docs/checkout/
Everything works great with the standard options. For example this works just fine:

paypal.Buttons({
    createOrder: function(data, actions) {
        return actions.order.create({
            purchase_units: [{
                amount: {
                    currency_code: 'EUR',
                    value: '120.16'
                },
                description: 'Purchase Unit test description',
                custom_id: '64735',
            }]
        })
    },
    onApprove: function(data, actions) {
        return actions.order.capture().then(function(details) {
            alert('Transaction completed by ' +
                  details.payer.name.given_name)
            // Call your server to save the transaction
            return fetch('/api/paypal-transaction-complete', {
                method: 'post',
                headers: {
                    'content-type': 'application/json'
                },
                body: JSON.stringify({
                    orderID: data.orderID
                })
            })
        })
    }
}).render('#paypal-button-container')

But when I try to be more specific about the order details it gives me an error:

Error: "Order Api response error: 
{ 
    "name": "INVALID_REQUEST", 
    "message": "Request is not well-formed, syntactically incorrect, or violates schema.", 
    "debug_id": "1ed03d18530c1", 
    "details": [ 
        { 
            "location": "body", 
            "issue": "INVALID_SYNTAX", 
            "description": "Cannot deserialize instance of `com.paypal.api.platform.checkout.orders.v2.model.AmountBreakdown` out of START_ARRAY token line: 1, column: 82" 
            } 
            ], 
            "links": [ 
                { 
                    "href": "https://developer.paypal.com/docs/api/orders/v2/#error-INVALID_SYNTAX", "rel": "information_link", "encType": "application/json" 
                } 
            ] 
        }"
}

This is my code:

paypal.Buttons({
    createOrder: function(data, actions) {
        return actions.order.create({
            purchase_units: [{
                amount: {
                    currency_code: 'EUR',
                    value: '120.16',
                    breakdown: [{
                                    item_total: {
                                        unit_amount: 7,
                                        currency_code: 'EUR',
                                        value: '120.16'
                                    }
                                    }]

                },
                description: 'Purchase Unit test description',
                custom_id: '64735',
                items: [{
                    name: 'Test item 1',
                    unit_amount: {
                        currency_code: 'EUR',
                        value: '60.12'
                    },
                    quantity: 2,
                    description: 'Uaua item 1 description'
                }, {
                    name: 'Test item 2',
                    unit_amount: {
                        currency_code: 'EUR',
                        value: '60.00'
                    },
                    quantity: 5,
                    description: 'Test item 2 description'
                }]
            }]
        })
    },
    onApprove: function(data, actions) {
        return actions.order.capture().then(function(details) {
            alert('Transaction completed by ' +
                  details.payer.name.given_name)
            // Call your server to save the transaction
            return fetch('/api/paypal-transaction-complete', {
                method: 'post',
                headers: {
                    'content-type': 'application/json'
                },
                body: JSON.stringify({
                    orderID: data.orderID
                })
            })
        })
    }
}).render('#paypal-button-container')

Does anyone know where the problem is? The PayPal documentation is not very informative...

Answer 1

After some more digging I have found the correct format:

paypal.Buttons({
    createOrder: function(data, actions) {
        return actions.order.create({
            purchase_units: [
            {
                reference_id: "PUHF",
                description: "Some description",

                custom_id: "Something7364",
                soft_descriptor: "Great description 1",
                amount: {
                    currency_code: "EUR",
                    value: "200.00",
                    breakdown: {
                        item_total: {
                            currency_code: "EUR",
                            value: "200.00"
                        }
                    }
                },
                items: [
                    {
                        name: "Item 1",
                        description: "The best item ever",
                        sku: "xyz-2654",
                        unit_amount: {
                            currency_code: "EUR",
                            value: "100.00"
                        },
                        quantity: "1"
                    },
                    {
                        name: "Item 2",
                        description: "Not bad too",
                        sku: "zdc-3942",
                        unit_amount: {
                            currency_code: "EUR",
                            value: "50.00"
                        },
                        quantity: "2"
                    }
                ],

            }
        ]
    });
},
onApprove: function(data, actions) {
    return actions.order.capture().then(function(details) {
        alert('Transaction completed by ' + details.payer.name.given_name);
        // Call your server to save the transaction
        return fetch('/api/paypal-transaction-complete', {
            method: 'post',
            headers: {
                'content-type': 'application/json'
            },
            body: JSON.stringify({
                orderID: data.orderID
            })
        });
    });
}
}).render('#paypal-button-container');

This is an example of complete set of options:

paypal.Buttons({
    createOrder: function(data, actions) {
        return actions.order.create({
            purchase_units: [{
                reference_id: "PUHF",
                description: "Sporting Goods",

                custom_id: "CUST-HighFashions",
                soft_descriptor: "HighFashions",
                amount: {
                    currency_code: "USD",
                    value: "230.00",
                    breakdown: {
                        item_total: {
                            currency_code: "USD",
                            value: "180.00"
                        },
                        shipping: {
                            currency_code: "USD",
                            value: "30.00"
                        },
                        handling: {
                            currency_code: "USD",
                            value: "10.00"
                        },
                        tax_total: {
                            currency_code: "USD",
                            value: "20.00"
                        },
                        shipping_discount: {
                            currency_code: "USD",
                            value: "10"
                        }
                    }
                },
                items: [{
                    name: "T-Shirt",
                    description: "Green XL",
                    sku: "sku01",
                    unit_amount: {
                         currency_code: "USD",
                         value: "90.00"
                    },
                    tax: {
                        currency_code: "USD",
                        value: "10.00"
                    },
                    quantity: "1",
                    category: "PHYSICAL_GOODS"
                },
                    {
                    name: "Shoes",
                    description: "Running, Size 10.5",
                    sku: "sku02",
                    unit_amount: {
                         currency_code: "USD",
                         value: "45.00"
                    },
                    tax: {
                        currency_code: "USD",
                        value: "5.00"
                    },
                    quantity: "2",
                    category: "PHYSICAL_GOODS"
                }
                ],
                shipping: {
                    method: "United States Postal Service",
                    address: {
                        name: {
                            full_name: "John",
                            surname: "Doe"
                        },
                        address_line_1: "123 Townsend St",
                        address_line_2: "Floor 6",
                        admin_area_2: "San Francisco",
                        admin_area_1: "CA",
                        postal_code: "94107",
                        country_code: "US"
                    }
                }
            }]
        })
    },
    onApprove: function(data, actions) {
        return actions.order.capture().then(function(details) {
            alert('Transaction completed by ' + details.payer.name.given_name)
            // Call your server to save the transaction
            return fetch('/api/paypal-transaction-complete', {
                method: 'post',
                headers: {
                    'content-type': 'application/json'
                },
                body: JSON.stringify({
                    orderID: data.orderID
                })
            })
        })
    }
}).render('#paypal-button-container')