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Car Park Booking API

A Laravel 12 REST API for managing car park bookings with seasonal pricing and token-based authentication

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Project Overview

Purpose

The Car Park Booking API is a comprehensive REST API built with Laravel 12 that enables efficient management of car park bookings. It provides a flexible pricing system with seasonal variations, secure authentication, and complete booking lifecycle management.

Challenge

Design and implement a scalable API that handles complex pricing rules (summer/winter rates, weekday/weekend variations), manages capacity constraints, and provides secure user authentication while maintaining clean, testable code architecture.

Solution

Built a RESTful API using Laravel 12 with PHP 8.2, implementing Laravel Sanctum for token-based authentication. Created a flexible pricing engine that handles seasonal variations, developed comprehensive CRUD operations for bookings, and included public endpoints for price calculations and availability checks. Utilized SQLite for development with support for production databases, and implemented a complete Pest test suite for quality assurance.

Key Features

Seasonal Pricing Engine

Configurable pricing rules supporting summer/winter rates and weekday/weekend variations. Prices stored in pence internally for precision, with capacity and pricing evaluated per calendar day.

Token-Based Authentication

Secure authentication using Laravel Sanctum with user registration, login, logout, and profile management. Includes seeded demo accounts for both admin and customer roles.

Comprehensive Booking Management

Full CRUD operations for bookings including list, create, update, and delete functionality. Automatic availability checking and capacity management per calendar day.

Public API Endpoints

Public endpoints for price calculation and availability checking, allowing integration with external systems without authentication. Includes Postman collection for easy testing.

Comprehensive Test Suite

Built with Pest testing framework for robust quality assurance. Includes unit and feature tests ensuring reliability across all API endpoints and business logic.

Flexible Database Support

SQLite for development with seamless support for MySQL, PostgreSQL, and other Laravel-compatible databases in production environments.

Technology Stack

Backend & Framework

  • ▹
    Laravel 12

    Modern PHP framework providing robust API foundation

  • ▹
    PHP 8.2

    Latest PHP features for type safety and performance

  • ▹
    Laravel Sanctum

    Token-based authentication for API security

  • ▹
    Composer

    Dependency management for PHP packages

Database & Testing

  • ▹
    SQLite

    Development database with production database support

  • ▹
    Pest

    Modern testing framework for comprehensive test coverage

  • ▹
    Eloquent ORM

    Laravel's database abstraction layer

Development Tools

  • ▹
    Postman Collection

    Pre-configured API testing collection

  • ▹
    Git

    Version control and source code management

API Endpoints

Public Endpoints

  • ▹
    GET /api/price

    Calculate booking price for specified dates

  • ▹
    GET /api/availability

    Check availability for specified dates

Authentication Endpoints

  • ▹
    POST /api/register

    Create new user account

  • ▹
    POST /api/login

    Authenticate user and receive token

  • ▹
    POST /api/logout

    Invalidate authentication token

  • ▹
    GET /api/profile

    Retrieve authenticated user profile

Booking Management Endpoints (Protected)

  • ▹
    GET /api/bookings

    List all bookings for authenticated user

  • ▹
    POST /api/bookings

    Create new booking

  • ▹
    PUT /api/bookings/{id}

    Update existing booking

  • ▹
    DELETE /api/bookings/{id}

    Delete booking

Technical Highlights

Pricing Engine Architecture

The pricing system uses a sophisticated rule-based engine that evaluates multiple factors to calculate accurate booking costs.

  • ▹ Prices stored in pence for precise calculations without floating-point errors
  • ▹ Seasonal rates configurable for summer and winter periods
  • ▹ Weekday/weekend rate variations for dynamic pricing
  • ▹ Per-calendar-day evaluation for accurate multi-day bookings

Capacity Management

Intelligent capacity tracking ensures the car park never exceeds its maximum occupancy.

  • ▹ Real-time availability checking before booking confirmation
  • ▹ Per-day capacity evaluation for overlapping bookings
  • ▹ Configurable capacity limits via application settings

Security & Authentication

Laravel Sanctum provides robust token-based authentication for secure API access.

  • ▹ Stateless token authentication for scalability
  • ▹ User-specific booking access and management
  • ▹ Demo accounts seeded for testing (admin and customer roles)
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