How can you handle cases where a value in a MySQL table needs to be incremented by a variable amount in PHP?

When a value in a MySQL table needs to be incremented by a variable amount in PHP, you can achieve this by first retrieving the current value from the database, adding the variable amount to it, and then updating the database with the new value.

// Connect to the database
$mysqli = new mysqli("localhost", "username", "password", "database");

// Retrieve the current value from the table
$query = "SELECT column_name FROM table_name WHERE condition";
$result = $mysqli->query($query);
$row = $result->fetch_assoc();
$currentValue = $row['column_name'];

// Increment the current value by a variable amount
$variableAmount = 5;
$newValue = $currentValue + $variableAmount;

// Update the table with the new value
$updateQuery = "UPDATE table_name SET column_name = $newValue WHERE condition";
$mysqli->query($updateQuery);

// Close the database connection
$mysqli->close();