Setting custom payment data in block

Question

I'm trying to implement a custom payment module and have added a few custom colums to the sales_flat_order_payment table. After the customer places the order, these fields should be updated and some of the inserted information needs to pre presented simultaneously. I do all of this in a custom block, that should display a custom template file or an error message if something went wrong. The problem I'm having now is, that the database information doesn't get updated. I don't know if this is the right way to do it but here is my code:

 $this->orderId = Mage::getSingleton('checkout/session')->getLastRealOrderId();         
 $this->order = Mage::getModel('sales/order')->loadByIncrementId($this->orderId);
 $this->payment = $this->order->getPayment();

then later I try to assign my data to the fields, for example:

 $this->payment->setMyData(time());

the column names are all correct, in this case it would be my_data. I do the same with the appropriate get() methods, which seem to work ok.

Also there seems to be another problem, the error message in the constructor doesn't get displayed every time:

if($this->establishGateway() == true)
            {
              $this->setTemplate('mypayment/gateway.phtml');  
            }
            else
            {
               Mage::getSingleton('core/session')->addError(__('There was a Problem with the Payment Gateway.')); 

            }

loadlayout and renderlayout get called from the controller that loads this block. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

In order to save the data to the database you need the call the save() method.

$this->orderId = Mage::getSingleton('checkout/session')->getLastRealOrderId();         
$this->order = Mage::getModel('sales/order')->loadByIncrementId($this->orderId);
$this->payment = $this->order->getPayment();
$this->payment->setMyData(time());
....
$this->payment->save();

Also

 Mage::getSingleton('core/session')->addError(__('There was a Problem with the Payment Gateway.'));

will only display the error message on redirect/page reload