Magento payment : additional_information or payment attribute?

Question

I'm wondering which is the better way to add some information to a payment in magento (1.4.1.1).

Let's say I want to add an information called "payment_duedate" which would be the date the customer has to pay his invoice.

Actually, there is a field in the sales_flat_order_payment called "additional_information" which contain serialized data set by the method setAdditionalInformation($arg1,$arg2); available in the 'sales/payment' model. So I could save my date by :

$payment->setAdditionalInformation('payment_duedate',$myDate);
$payment->save();

But one could also choose to add a payment attribute, which would have as effect to create a new column called 'payment_duedate' in the 'sales_flat_order_payment' and then save my date by doing :

$payment->setPaymentDuedate($myDate);
$payment->save();

The main differences are :

with the "additional_information method", datas are serialized, and so, not queryable easily.
with the "setPaymentDuedate() method", datas are queryable and a new field is created in the table

So, in your opinion, which of the two ways is the best ?

Thanks, Hugues.

score 5 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 08 '12 at 13:08

5

The setAdditionalInformation() is most useful for read-only attributes, such as a message to the user, like "Transaction Bank: MyBank".

The custom setPaymentDuedate() is useful for processing afters, like checking a payment status where Duedate > MMDDYY.

edited Mar 08 '12 at 13:08

answered Mar 07 '12 at 16:46

Morningtime Digital Media

21
1
3

it would be good if you add how to get them later from `payment` object – Mohammad Faisal Apr 11 '14 at 13:29
http://magento.stackexchange.com/questions/97754/save-additional-order-metadata-while-processing-payment/157929#157929 – Rahim Khoja Feb 03 '17 at 18:03

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:09

1

I find the question to be subjective. And given that the second way isn't much more effort (see my experiences) it's hard to choose either one.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:09

Community

1
1

answered Feb 10 '11 at 00:53

clockworkgeek

37,650
9
89
127

Magento payment : additional_information or payment attribute?

2 Answers2

Linked