How can the code be improved to handle the return value of an INSERT query in a more reliable manner?

The issue can be solved by using the `mysqli_insert_id()` function in PHP to retrieve the auto-generated ID that was inserted into the database. This function returns the ID of the last inserted row, which can be used to verify the success of the INSERT query and handle the return value more reliably.

// Execute the INSERT query
$result = mysqli_query($conn, "INSERT INTO table_name (column1, column2) VALUES ('value1', 'value2')");

// Check if the query was successful
if ($result) {
    $inserted_id = mysqli_insert_id($conn);
    echo "Row inserted with ID: " . $inserted_id;
} else {
    echo "Error: " . mysqli_error($conn);
}