The follow tables I have are:
CUSTOMERS (CustomerID, firstname, surname etc)
ROOMS (RoomID, RoomType, Description)
BOOKING (BookingID, CustomerID, Arriva
this query list all rooms and for each room shows if it is available within [Arrival , Departure] dates
SELECT
RoomType,
case when NOT EXISTS (SELECT RoomID
FROM ROOMS_BOOKED rb
JOIN BOOKING b on b.BookingID = rb.BookingID
WHERE rb.RoomID = r.Id
and ArrivalDate < 'param Departure Date here'
and DepartureDate > 'param Arrival Date here')
then 1 else 0 end IsAvailable
FROM ROOMS r
here is a sample query which i used for checking the rooms which are not available, the query will return the unavailable rooms
SELECT roomno FROM tbl_ReservedRooms WHERE ((fromdate BETWEEN @checkindate AND @checkoutdate )
OR (todate BETWEEN @checkindate AND @checkoutdate))
AND status = 'Active'
SELECT * FROM room rm WHERE rm.Room_id NOT IN (SELECT DISTINCT Room_id FROM booking bk WHERE (bk.arrive_date BETWEEN '$from_date' AND '$to_date') OR (bk.departure_date BETWEEN '$from_date' AND '$to_date') OR (bk.arrive_date<'$from_date' AND bk.departure_date>'$to_date'))
You have the following cases
The user's selected period:
--------[---------]-------
Booking no1
[-----]-------------------
Booking no2
--------------------[----]
Booking no3
-----[----]---------------
Booking no4
-----------[---]----------
Booking no5
------[-------]-----------
Booking no6
--------------[--------]--
Booking no7
-----[----------------]---
You will have to find which periods cross over. Obviously cases 1 and 2 are free. Cases 3,5,6 are easy to catch as you can search if either the start date of the booking or the end date of the booking is within the user's selection. Cases 4 and 7 you would need to find if either of the user's selection dates would be between the bookings.
So the following finds free rooms:
DECLARE @ArrivalDate AS DATETIME
DECLARE @DepartureDate AS DATETIME
SELECT RoomType
FROM ROOMS
WHERE RoomID NOT IN
(
SELECT RoomID
FROM BOOKING B
JOIN ROOMS_BOOKED RB
ON B.BookingID = RB.BookingID
WHERE (ArrivalDate <= @ArrivalDate AND DepartureDate >= @ArrivalDate) -- cases 3,5,7
OR (ArrivalDate < @DepartureDate AND DepartureDate >= @DepartureDate ) --cases 6,6
OR (@ArrivalDate <= ArrivalDate AND @DepartureDate >= ArrivalDate) --case 4
)