PHP / MySQL timetable comparison

Question

I have an idea for a project that I am currently working on, I am however struggling to find a way to implement this in PHP/MySQL.

I have a database with a list of activities that a tattoo parlour has, basically he works from 9 to 5 and when an event is added it is added to the database using date and time

| --- DATE----- | TIME |
2012-11-02 ---| 10:00:00

What I am trying to do is list all the times and dates within the tattooist timetable in the following week that does not already have events going on, this will also ensure the tattooist doesn't double book too!

any assistance will help guys, any assistance will help

Answer 1

The best way to create the application is to store each scheduled event into a database and "black out" dates that are already taken by the applications "events" table (per say)... You will probably want to do your event creation checks during the point that the event would be created or written to the mysql db.... You will probably want to have an events table with a start and end time for each event.... when you go to schedule an event (assuming user input dictates event time and date) just write a mysql query that selects the event where the DATE(a.lastevent) = DATE(NOW())... let me know if you have further questions

Edit:

I would build the front end of the application calendar style using a JavaScript interface. In the long run it will be much more user friendly and much easier to create, I've implemented them in a day.

The framework I suggest using is ExtJS, there are many tutorials and extensions for calendars, I know that ExtJS 3 has a calendar built into it and you can view a tutorial on that here: http://www.sencha.com/learn/using-calendar

Additionally, if you decide to use ExtJS4, you can use this plugin: https://github.com/bmoeskau/Extensible/downloads or this one http://www.sencha.com/forum/showthread.php?142488-Extjs-4-based-open-source-Calendar-application

The second link is open source, the demo looks to be Spanish (it does what you need and more), but if you use Chrome you'll get a bar at the top asking if you want the page translated, click yes, it does a great job. From there you can do find and replaces to get it to English.

The ExtJS 3 tutorial will show you how to interface the calendar with a PHP page so that you can update your MySQL database via AJAX. It is much simpler than you might think, and you'll save a ton of time trying to code it from scratch.

Answer 2

Sometimes it depends on how long each scheduled event might be. Are you adding these events with just a timestamp or are you also tracking how long of a block is being assigned?

you could have an appointment set using a start and stop time and some math..

I have a annoying tendency to use a epoch timestamp instead of a mysql date time. then you can make calculations to see if an appointment overlaps or find the gaps. just have to learn to count in seconds or provide math to adjust :).