3. The booking database
The booking database system will have a record for every seat in the theatre, for every day and time slot, to keep track of whether it is reserved or not.
A typical record may look like:
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| RecordID | 1229900 |
| SeatID | 1A |
| Date | 2/4/2012 |
| Start time | 19:30 |
| End time | 23:00 |
| Booked | YES |
| CustomerID | Jones123 |
The field item called 'Available' indicates whether the seat has been booked for the time slot on that date. It will also record who booked it.
When someone wants to make a booking the database is searched to show all un-reserved seats. What the customer may see is an up to date seating plan like the one below
The pale seats are showing which ones are still available. The web site will have a key to the colour coding as there is no standard way of doing this. So behind this plan there is a real-time database system.
Challenge see if you can find out one extra fact on this topic that we haven't already told you
Click on this link: real-time database system