Question

I’m developing a booking system where by certain users can book an Activity for a specific date and time (these times are Activity specific). The system needs to check if that Activity is available at this time (There may be a class being held at that time, for example).

How would I represent the date/times that an Activity can be booked in a Database schema?

Example:

Activity - Swimming
Available times:
Monday : 9am - 5pm
Tuesday : 9am - 12pm
Wednesday : 9am - 4pm
Thursday : 10am - 3pm
Friday : 9am - 5pm

If I have a record in my Activity table for the Swimming activity. Which holds details such as the description, cost etc how would I store this schedule in a field?

Thanks.

Answer 1

I’d suggest you have a separate table for schedules with an int ScheduleID primary key, int ActivityID foreign key, datetime StartTime, time Interval and any other columns it needs.

Then, when checking to see if a new activity conflicts with a previously scheduled one, you can use LINQ to SQL:

bool conflict = (from i in db.Schedules
                 where potential.StartTime > i.StartTime
                 && potential.StartTime < i.StartTime.Add(i.Interval)
                 select i).Count() > 0;

Disclaimer: Not 100% sure the DataContext will make it work this way.