Running this program from a local machine can get pretty tedious.  In order to run this program, it is required to have an apache server (to run the php code) and a MySQL server (to simulate the database).  For our testing and design purposes, we used XAMPP.  XAMPP is a free and open source cross-platform web server solution stack package, consisting mainly of the Apache HTTP Server, MySQL database, and interpreters for scripts written in the PHP and Perl programming languages.  MySQL is an open source relational database management system.  It is required to simulate this program as the code includes MySQL database queries.  Once these programs are installed, the user should make sure both these are running by going to the XAMPP directory and running the 'xampp_start' file.  Once this is done, the user should create a folder in the XAMPP directory (we will just name this folder 'Parking' for this readme).  The next step would be to copy all the files submitted with this readme and copy them to that new XAMPP directory.  There are some applications that can interfere with the XAMPP, such as Skype, that may need to be turned off in order to run the software as they cause a port conflict.  Lastly, in the /include folder there is a file called 'config.inc.php' that is essential to this program.  The program will reference this file anytime it needs to get access to the database.  Below is an explanation of each field and what is required of it:

$g_Cfg['site_name'] = 'Parking Garage';  // this should be kept the same

$g_Cfg['db_host'] = 'localhost:3306'; // unless the user made a specific port change when installing the MySQL server, port 3306 will be chosen by default

$g_Cfg['db_user'] = 'root'; // this is the default user name assigned when installing MySQL and should be changed if the default settings weren't chosen

$g_Cfg['db_pass'] = 'admin'; // as before, a password is created at the end of the MySQL installation process and should be inserted here

$g_Cfg['db_schema'] = 'Parking'; // this is the name of the schema used for the site and should be kept the same, especially if using the same .sql file (seen in the 4_data_collection folder)

$g_Cfg['style'] = 'css/style.css'; // this should be kept the same

When finished, the user can open up any web browser and type in 'localhost/Parking'.


Another alternative is to simply go to www.reserve-your-spot.com and run the code from there.  At the moment the website online is built off the code attached to this submission.