title: How should i store availability calendar information in mysql? for [id] [date] [available/unavailable]
body: <p>I'm building a simple calendar for holiday cottages to show when they are booked or available.</p>
  
  <p>What would be the fastest mysql table design for this, bearing in mind when users mark dates as available/booked they will do so via a start date and an end date.</p>
  
  <p>i can see 2 obvious options</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>Store 'booked' data for every day [more rows]</li>
  <li>or, store 'booked' data with 2 columns a start_date and end_date [more processing?]</li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>Which is best or is there another method i'm missing?</p>
  
  <p>The data is to show a visual calendar on each property's page</p>