I am soon going to attempt to write a web based reservation system. It will allow vistors to the page to look at a graphical calandar with days that have been reserved marked appropriately, and then allow them to tenatively reserve a date for themselves. What I would really like is simply some pointers as to how I ought to attack the basic logic of the problem.

My current thoughts are to store reserved dates in a flatfile, which will be stripped of dates prior to the current date at each use, then load the list of dates into an array and build the table based on that array. I'll have another file where tenative reservations are stored, formatted in the same way, and second secure form, where the administrator can confirm the reservations thus transferring them to the other file.

After a person has made a reservation (which will require an e-mail address to be entered), I'll send periodic reminders about the reservation via e-mail, and will also need to track things like payment date, which would be a set number of days before the reservation. If payment is not made by that date, the script (or another script) should auto-remove the reservation. Can anyone tell me if I appear to be headed in the right direction? Is there a better way to do this than flat files? Your thoughts would be appreciated.


In reply to CGI Calandar by raflach

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