✈️ India Airlines - C++ Airline Ticket Booking System

A terminal-based C++ project simulating an airline booking system. Users can search flights, book tickets, generate and view tickets, and cancel bookings. All data is handled using persistent file storage.

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📋 Table of Contents

1. Features
2. Prerequisites
3. Installation
4. Build Instructions
5. Usage
6. Key Concepts Used
7. Workflow
8. Concept Map
9. Directory Structure
10. Acknowledgments

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✅ Features

• 🔍 Search available flights by origin & destination
• 🧾 Book tickets for one or more passengers
• 📄 Auto-generates unique ticket files with IDs
• 👥 View all booked tickets
• ❌ Cancel bookings and delete associated ticket file
• 💾 Persistent storage using bookings.txt and ticket_counter.txt
• 🛠️ Exception handling for robust error management

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✅ Prerequisites

Ensure you have the following installed on your system:

• GCC/G++ compiler (version 9 or later)
  Confirm with:

  g++ --version

• DLL dependencies (for Windows builds): These should be in the same folder as the airlines.exe:

  • libstdc++-6.dll

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🛠️ Installation

1. Clone the Repository (if applicable): If you have the source code in a repository (e.g., Git), clone it to your local machine.

   git clone <repository_url>
   cd IndiaAirlines

2. No Explicit Installation Steps: This is a standalone C++ application. There's no traditional installation process like installing a package. The executable file (airlines.exe on Windows) is the application itself.

🔧 Build Instructions

Using g++ (Direct Compilation)

1. Open a terminal or command prompt in the directory containing the source file (main.cpp).

2. Compile the main.cpp file along with any necessary flags (like linking the filesystem library):

   g++ -std=c++17 main.cpp -o airlines  
   # depending on your compiler and system.

   On Windows, the output executable will likely be airlines.exe. On Linux/macOS, it will be airlines.

3. Run the executable:

./airlines.exe ```

The executable (`airlines` or `airlines.exe`) will be created in the `build/Release` or `build/Debug` directory.

🚀 Usage

1. Navigate to the Executable: Open a terminal or command prompt and navigate to the directory containing the compiled executable (airlines or airlines.exe).

2. Run the Application: Execute the program.

   ./airlines # On Linux/macOS
   airlines.exe # On Windows

3. Follow the Menu: The application will display a main menu with the following options:

   ========= Main Menu =========
   1. Search & Book Flights
   2. View All Tickets
   3. Cancel Booking
   4. Exit
   =============================
   Enter your choice (1-4):
   

   Enter the number corresponding to the desired action and follow the on-screen prompts.

🧠 Concepts Used

This project demonstrates the following key programming concepts:

• File Handling (<fstream>):
  • Reading flight data from flights.txt.
  • Reading and writing booking data to bookings.txt.
  • Managing a counter in ticket_counter.txt for generating unique ticket IDs.
  • Creating and writing individual ticket details to files in the tickets directory.
• Vectors (STL - <vector>):
  • Storing lists of Flights objects when searching.
  • Holding Booking objects for passengers in a single booking.
  • Managing a collection of booking groups.
• Exception Handling (<stdexcept>):
  • Using try-catch blocks to handle potential runtime errors, such as file opening failures, invalid input, or no flights found.
  • Throwing and catching standard exceptions like runtime_error and out_of_range.
• Filesystem (<filesystem>):
  • Creating the tickets directory if it doesn't exist.
  • Checking if the tickets directory is empty.
  • Iterating through the files within the tickets directory to display existing tickets.
  • Deleting ticket files when a booking is canceled.
• Inheritance:
  • The Booking class inherits publicly from the Flights class. This allows Booking objects to access and utilize the flight details (FlightID, Origin, Destination, DepartureTime, ArrivalTime, FlightPrice) while adding passenger-specific information (PassengerName, Gender, Age, TicketID).
• String Manipulation (<string>, <sstream>, <iomanip>):
  • Processing strings for flight origins, destinations, times, and prices.
  • Using stringstream to create unique ticket IDs.
  • Employing iomanip (specifically setw and left) for formatted output of flight details.

🔄 Workflow

1. Application Start:

   • The program loads any existing booking data from bookings.txt into memory.
   • The main menu is displayed to the user.

2. Search & Book Flights (Option 1):

   • The user is prompted to enter the origin and destination.
   • The program reads flight data from flights.txt and displays matching flights.
   • The user selects a flight to book.
   • The user enters the number of passengers and their details (name, gender, age).
   • A unique ticket ID is generated.
   • Booking objects are created for each passenger.
   • A ticket file (e.g., ticket_TKT12345.txt) containing the flight and passenger details is created in the tickets directory.
   • The new booking is saved to the bookings.txt file.

3. View All Tickets (Option 2):

   • The program checks if the tickets directory exists and is not empty.
   • It iterates through each file in the tickets directory and displays its content to the user.

4. Cancel Booking (Option 3):

   • The program lists the available bookings (based on the loaded data from bookings.txt).
   • The user selects a booking to cancel.
   • The corresponding ticket file in the tickets directory is deleted.
   • The booking is removed from the in-memory data and the bookings.txt file is updated.

5. Exit (Option 4):

   • The program terminates.

🧭 Concept Map

flowchart TD
    A[Main Menu] --> B1[Search Flights]
    A --> B2[View Tickets]
    A --> B3[Cancel Booking]
    A --> C[Exit]

    B1 --> C1[Enter Origin & Destination]
    C1 --> C2[Match with flights.txt]
    C2 --> C3[Display Flights]
    C3 --> C4[User Selects Flight]
    C4 --> C5[Enter Passenger Details]
    C5 --> C6[Create Booking Objects]
    C6 --> C7[Generate Ticket File]
    C7 --> C8[Append to bookings.txt]

    B2 --> D1[Read all ticket files from /tickets/]
    B3 --> E1[Display all Bookings]
    E1 --> E2[Select Ticket to Cancel]
    E2 --> E3[Delete Ticket File]
    E3 --> E4[Remove from bookings.txt]

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📁 Directory Structure

airline-booking-cpp/
│
├── airline_booking.cpp          # Main source code
├── flights.txt                  # Input flights data
├── bookings.txt                 # Stored bookings
├── ticket_counter.txt           # Keeps count of ticket ID
├── /tickets/                    # Folder containing all ticket files
└── README.md                    # This file

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🙌 Acknowledgments

This simple flight booking system was developed as a demonstration of basic C++ programming concepts, including file handling, the Standard Template Library (specifically vector), exception handling, filesystem operations, and inheritance.

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