Help developing a really basic calendar script

itsthebrod

Hello all,

For my website I need to create a really simple calendar script to show the operating schedule for a theme park. Basically I just want a calendar of the current month displayed and each date colored different depending on the hours the park are open. The ability to see future months is a plus. I'd also like to get the hours that the park is open today and display them on another page.

So I've looked through a few pre-made scripts and they seemed either too in-depth or too simplistic for my needs, so I was thinking about making my own. I'm not necessarily a PHP newbie but I am pretty rusty as its been several years since I've done any real programming.

What do you think the best way to go about doing this would be? Regarding the storing of the data, should I define the hours of operation in a mySQL database? XML file? Array within the PHP script? It'd be a big plus if I could store ranges so instead of individually listing that each day in July has hours of 10-10, I could just put in a range saying from July 1-July 31 the park is open 10-10.

Any input or suggestions is going to help a ton!

big_nerd

isthebrod,

For the calendar functionality, I suggest you google around for a decent Calendar script that will help you along.

I found this script but can not speak for its quality, ease of use, etc, I just found it on Google.

I would recommend a database as SQL has many options for grabbing the information.

You could use a range of dates, but you would have to be sure as the administrator not to allow them to overlap

For instance, the table structure could be:

id, open_time, close_time, start_date, end_date

then you could get the item like

$currentDate = date('Y-m-d');
$query = "SELECT open_time, close_time FROM mytable WHERE start_date >= '$currentDate' AND end_date <= '$currentDate'";
// ... mysql code

Note: I am pretty tired so you may have to play with that, but start_date and end_date would be a date or datetime data type.

The site I provided my be of help under the section "Link or provide content for certain days" whereby you can fill that data in.

You could then offer the next month / prev month (if required).

I would start somewhere there.

Best of luck..

itsthebrod

Thanks for those pointers, big.nerd. They've been a great help in getting started, now I seem to stuck again. I've adopted the mySQL table structure you gave with a start_date and an end_date, and then I've already formed a mySQL query.

I'm also using the calendar script you gave me as it seems like it'll work; I just need to format the operating days into this structure:

$days = array( 
    2=>array('/weblog/archive/2004/Jan/02','linked-day'), 
    3=>array('/weblog/archive/2004/Jan/03','linked-day'), 
    8=>array('/weblog/archive/2004/Jan/08','linked-day'), 
    22=>array('/weblog/archive/2004/Jan/22','linked-day'), 
);

But now for where I'm stuck. I have a for loop that loops through each day in the month and I already have the timestamp for each day. I have no clue how to manipulate the associated array I got from the mySQL query to get the open_time and close_time for a given timestamp. This seems especially bewildering to me when the timestamp is part of a range. How can I take the mySQL query results and get the open and close times given a timestamp? My code is below...

// First, let's determine the first and last days for the month given...
// This will help us define the SQL query to get the operating hours for the desired month

// Was a month set? 
if(is_numeric($_GET['m'])){
	// If the year was set, use that year... Otherwise, use this year
	if(isset($_GET['y']) and is_numeric($_GET['y'])){
		$year = $_GET['y'];
	}
	else {
		$year = date('Y');
	}
	$first_day = mktime(0,0,0,$_GET['m'],1,$year);
	$last_day = mktime(0,0,0,$_GET['m']+1,0,$year);
	$num_of_days = date('t',$first_day); // # of days in the month
}
else{
	// No month given... Default to this month and get the first/last day
	$first_day = mktime(0,0,0,date('n'),1,date('Y'));
	$last_day = mktime(0,0,0,date('n'),date('t'),date('Y'));
	$num_of_days = date('t',$first_day);
}

// Generate the query
$query = "SELECT * FROM parkhours WHERE start_date >= $first_day AND end_date <= $last_day";
$hour_results = mysql_fetch_assoc(mysql_query($query));

// Loop through each day of the month, assigning the hours to an array that can be used in
// the following calendar script
for($day = 0; $day < $num_of_days; $day++){
	// Make the timestamp for each date, using the first day's timestamp and adding to it the
	// number of days times the seconds in a day
	$current_timestamp = $first_day + $day*86400;

// Get the open_time and close_time for that timestamp from the mySQL query
//   ?????????????????????
}

Thanks again for all the help you've provided so far! Seems like after this hurdle I'll be set! 🙂