e-Hotels Application

A web-based hotel booking system based on Deliverable 1 by Mouad Ben lahbib (300259705).

Features

• User-friendly interface for searching and booking hotel rooms
• Multi-criteria search filters (Dates, Capacity, Area, Chain, Rating, Price, etc.)
• Customer registration and login
• Customer booking management (view bookings)
• Employee portal with separate login
• Employee functionalities:
  • Check-in guests (convert booking to renting)
  • Direct room rental without prior booking
  • CRUD operations for Hotel Chains, Hotels, Rooms, Employees, Customers (limited), Contacts
  • Dashboard displaying key information and database views
• Responsive design

Technologies Used

• PHP (Tested on 8.x)
• MySQL (Tested on 5.7+ / MariaDB 10.x+)
• Apache (or compatible web server like Nginx)
• HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript (ES6)
• Bootstrap 5.3
• Font Awesome 6
• PDO for database connections

Installation & Setup

Tested Environment:

• Windows OS
• XAMPP (with Apache, MariaDB/MySQL, PHP 8.x)

Prerequisites:

• XAMPP installed and running (Apache & MySQL services started).
• A web browser.

Steps:

1. Place Project Files:

   • Copy the entire eHotels project folder (excluding the .git and non_submission directories if present) into your XAMPP's htdocs directory (typically C:\xampp\htdocs\).

2. Configure Database Connection:

   • Open the file config/database.php using a text editor.
   • Ensure the variables match the default XAMPP MySQL settings:

     private $host = '127.0.0.1'; // Or 'localhost'
     private $db_name = 'ehotels'; // You will create this database name
     private $username = 'root'; // Default XAMPP username
     private $password = ''; // Default XAMPP password is empty

   • (If your XAMPP MySQL uses a different username or password, update accordingly.)
   • Save the config/database.php file.

3. Create Database via phpMyAdmin:

   • Open your web browser and go to http://localhost/phpmyadmin.
   • Click on the "Databases" tab.
   • In the "Create database" field, enter the database name specified in config/database.php (e.g., ehotels).
   • Select utf8mb4_unicode_ci as the collation.
   • Click "Create".

4. Import Schema & Data via phpMyAdmin:

   • In phpMyAdmin, click on the database name you just created (e.g., ehotels) in the left-hand sidebar.
   • Click on the "Import" tab near the top.
   • Under "File to import", click "Browse..." or "Choose File".
   • Navigate to the eHotels/sql/ directory inside your htdocs folder.
   • Import the following files one by one, in this exact order:
     1. Select database_schema.sql and click "Go" (or "Import"). Wait for success.
     2. Click "Import" again, select database_population.sql, and click "Go". Wait for success.
     3. Click "Import" again, select create_views.sql, and click "Go". Wait for success.
     4. Click "Import" again, select create_indexes.sql, and click "Go". Wait for success.
     5. Click "Import" again, select triggers.sql, and click "Go". Wait for success.
   • Note: Ensure each import completes successfully before proceeding to the next.

5. Access the Application:

   • Open your web browser and navigate to the project directory URL.
   • Example: If you placed the folder as eHotels in htdocs, the URL will likely be http://localhost/eHotels/ or http://127.0.0.1/eHotels/.

6. Login Credentials (from population script):

   • Customer: Please use the registration page to create a customer account.
   • Employee: Please use the registration page to create an employee account.

Directory Structure (Essential for Submission)

• /config - Database configuration
• /css - Stylesheet files
• /employee - PHP files for employee-specific functionality
• /hotel - PHP files for hotel management
• /hotel_chain - PHP files for hotel chain management
• /images - Image assets
• /includes - Common PHP components (header, footer)
• /js - JavaScript files
• /sql - Essential SQL setup files (database_schema.sql, database_population.sql, create_views.sql, create_indexes.sql, triggers.sql)
• index.php - Main entry point / homepage
• login.php - User login page
• logout.php - User logout script
• my_bookings.php - Customer booking view page
• process_booking.php - Handles the booking submission
• README.md - This file
• register.php - Customer registration page
• search.php - Room search page

Usage Notes

• The application uses sessions to manage user login state.
• Error messages should appear at the top of the page if issues occur.
• Database errors are logged to the PHP error log.

Contributors

• Mouad Ben lahbib (300259705)

Disclaimer

This application is based on a database design project by Mouad.

License

All Rights Reserved.