asked on

Sql date search problem

I have a database in mysql for room availability in a hotel. I want to allow a search for room type and date availability.
I use the between function of sql but the problem is searching for multiple dates. I can search for single dates but for someone searching for a period e.g 1st Feb to 7th Feb , I get reduntant records showing up.
Below is the html code and I would like to know the sql code to select this data from the database. I hope this is clear and if anyone wants more information please let me know.

<html>

<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1252">
<meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 4.0">
<meta name="ProgId" content="FrontPage.Editor.Document">
<title>New Page 2</title>
</head>

<body>

<form method="POST" action="search.php3">
<div align="center">
<center>
<table border="0" width="50%">
<tr>
<td width="33%" bgcolor="#CCCCCC">
<p align="center"><input type="text" name="arrday" size="20"></td>
<td width="37%" bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><select name="arrmonth" size="1" onChange="updatemonth(this.form)" class="BodySansSmall">
<option>January</option>
<option>February</option>
<option>March</option>
<option>April</option>
<option>May</option>
<option>June</option>
<option>July</option>
<option>August</option>
<option>September</option>
<option>October</option>
<option>November</option>
<option>December</option>
</select></td>
<td width="30%" bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><select name="arryear" size="1" onChange="updateyear(this.form)" class="BodySansSmall">
<option>2000</option>
<option>2001</option>
</select></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="34%" bgcolor="#CCCCCC">
<p align="center"><input type="text" name="endday" size="20"></td>
<td width="33%" bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><select name="end_month" size="1" class="BodySansSmall">
<option>January</option>
<option>February</option>
<option>March</option>
<option>April</option>
<option>May</option>
<option>June</option>
<option>July</option>
<option>August</option>
<option>September</option>
<option>October</option>
<option>November</option>
<option>December</option>
</select></td>
<td width="33%" bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><select name="end_year" size="1" class="BodySansSmall">
<option>2000</option>
<option>2001</option>
</select></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="67%" colspan="2" bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><select name="standard" size="1" class="BodySansSmall">
<option value="Deluxe" selected>Deluxe (over 5,000 Baht)</option>
<option value="Superior">First-class (up to 5,000 Baht)</option>
<option value="Standard">Superior (up to 3,000 Baht)</option>
<option value="Budget">Standard (up to 1,500 Baht)</option>
</select></td>
<td width="33%" bgcolor="#CCCCCC">
<p align="center"><select name="numrooms" size="1" class="BodySansSmall">
<option selected>1</option>
<option>2</option>
</select></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="34%" bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><select size="1" name="location">
<option>Bangkok</option>
<option value="samui">Samui</option>
<option>Phuket</option>
</select></td>
<td width="33%" bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><select size="1" name="acc">
<option>resort</option>
<option>cottage</option>
</select></td>
<td width="33%" bgcolor="#CCCCCC">
 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="100%" colspan="3" bgcolor="#CCCCCC">
<p align="center"><input type="submit" value="Submit" name="B1"></td>
</tr>
</table>
</center>
</div>
<p> </p>
</form>

</body>

</html>

Ron Warshawsky

Your query will look like:

rooms - table, that contains rooms information

room_type is your room type

standard, arrdate, end_date, arrmonth, end_month , arryear and end_year - your host variables

select *
from rooms
where
room_type = :standard
and not (
arrdate >= :arrdate
and end_date <= :end_date
and arrmonth >= :arrmonth
and end_month <= :end_month
and arryear >= :arryear
and end_year <= :end_year
)

Regards,
rwarsh

P.S. Let me know, if you have any questions

dastard

ASKER

This is interesting but it will not work in the format of my table.
In my table I have the following fields.

Hotel ID
Room type
date 1 to 31 ( so each date is a separate field )
month
year

The record inside the date field 1- 31 is the number of rooms available for this hotel ID
When the search is made, I would like to query so that if the arrival date and end date month year etc have value greater than 0 then this should give the final result of ALL matching records and present the Hotel(s) ID.

Providing this query produces the Hotel ID then the next stage where I use PHP3 and MySql to query this ID from another database.

Perhaps you can suggest another way of constructing the database if you feel that the way I am doing this is incorrect or inefficient.

Ron Warshawsky

This table structure will make it normalized:

Hotel ID
Room_Type
Rooms_Available
Date
Month
Year

Then query will look like:

select HotelID
from Rooms
where Room_Type = :standard
and Rooms_Available > 0
and date is between :arrdate and :end_date
and month is between :arrmonth and :end_month
and year is between :arryear and :end_year

As always, let me know. if you have any questions.

rwarsh

dastard

ASKER

When I do this I get multiple records with the same hotel ID. This is because the records have the same hotel ID for the different days.

To try to further clarify the problem,

I need to select Hotel Name, Description, URL from *another* table of hotel information (hotelinfo).
Where the rooms available are selected from another table ( rooms table) where the rooms available >0 and date is between selected arrday, arrmonth,arryear.

where hotel ID of hotelinformation table = hotel ID for rooms table,
Hope this makes sense.

csabay

I don't see among your selects, datard, which one is referring to column Date. Please, explain!

Regards

Charles

Ron Warshawsky

dastard,

I am sorry, please change your query as :

select distinct HotelID
from Rooms
where Room_Type = :standard
and Rooms_Available > 0
and date is between :arrdate and :end_date
and month is between :arrmonth and :end_month
and year is between :arryear and :end_year

rwarsh

Ron Warshawsky

To select hotel info use this query:

select distinct
a.HotelID,
b.Hotel Name,
b.Description,
b.URL
from Rooms a,
HotelInfo b
where a.HotelID = b.HotelID
and a.Room_Type = :standard
and a.Rooms_Available > 0
and a.date is between :arrdate and :end_date
and a.month is between :arrmonth and :end_month
and a.year is between :arryear and :end_year

rwarsh

dastard

ASKER

Thx Rwarsh but I still cannot get this to work,
I have never seen the command 'distinct' is this a Sql command or not?
I have tried to use as you suggest but no records are found.
Since I am using Php3 I also have tried inserting the $ as follows.

$sql = "select distinct hotelid
from rooms
where av > 0
and date between '$arrdate' and '$end_date'
and month between '$arrmonth' and '$end_month'
and year between '$arryear' and '$end_year'

";
As I indicated before, I DO want to select the Hotel ID but from the Hotels where the condition matches for rooms available date etc. Then to go on to the Hotel Description table
eg syntax below

<html>
<?

mysql_connect( "localhost", "username", "password");

mysql_select_db( "db") or die( "Error opening database");

// query the DB

$sql = "select hotelinfo.name , hotelinfo.url, hotelifo.description from hotelinfo ,rooms
where hotelinfo.hotelid = rooms.hotelid and rooms.av > 0
and rooms.date between '$arrdate' and '$end_date'
and rooms.month between '$arrmonth' and '$end_month'
and rooms.year between '$arryear' and '$end_year'

";

$result = mysql_query($sql);

if ($myrow = mysql_fetch_array($result))

// display list if there are records to display

do

printf("<a href= %s >%s</a>%s<br>\n", $myrow["url"], $myrow["name"], $myrow["description"]);

while ($myrow = mysql_fetch_array($result));

else

// no records to display

echo "Sorry, no records were found!";

?>

dastard

ASKER

Comment to csbay

I do not want to select the date but I want the date as the condition to select the right record.

sganta

Hi Dastard,

I just want to give a try.

Does the SQL that your working on supports TO_DATE etc. conversion
functions, then you can do the following.

Concatenate the DATE-MONTH-YEAR together and compare with
date.

For eg: In ORACLE we use || for concatenation.

Hotel ID
Room_Type
Rooms_Available
Date
Month
Year

Suppose :from_date, :to_date, :from_month, :to_month,
:from_year and :two_year are the parameters that you are passing

You can compare it like this

SELECT * FROM hotel
WHERE
TO_DATE(date||'-'||month||'-'||year,'dd-mon-yyyy')
between TO_DATE(:from_date||'-'||from_month||'-'||from_year,'dd-mon-yyyy')TO_DAand TO_DATE(:from_date||'-'||from_month||'-'||from_year,'dd-mon-yyyy')

OR

SELECT * FROM hotel
WHERE
TO_DATE(date||'-'||month||'-'||year,'dd-mon-yyyy')
between TO_DATE('12-jan-1990','dd-mon-yyyy') and
between TO_DATE('12-oct-1999','dd-mon-yyyy');

Hope this may help you to convert into your SQL.

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Ron Warshawsky

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dastard

ASKER

finally got it sorted with a slight modification pasted below
very good thx for your help.
Sorry for the delay posting this

select DISTINCT hotel_name , description from rmav where location= '$location' AND date >= '$arrday' AND date = '$end_day' AND month >='$arrmonth'
AND month = '$end_month' AND year >= '$arryear' AND year ='$end_year'AND av > 0 AND accomodation = '$acc'";

Ron Warshawsky

You are very welcome.

rwarsh

bernie123

Im currently working on a similar database but without the leave/end date field, my fields are:

arrival date
Number of nights
room type

Any ideas how i could search for availablity using these fields? Platform: Oracle 8i.

Cheers Bernie