What are the best practices for handling auto-increment primary keys in PHP when inserting data into a database?

When inserting data into a database with auto-increment primary keys in PHP, it is important to exclude the primary key column from the SQL query to allow the database to generate the unique key automatically. This ensures that each new record will have a unique identifier without the need for manual assignment.

<?php
// Establish a database connection
$servername = "localhost";
$username = "username";
$password = "password";
$dbname = "database";
$conn = new mysqli($servername, $username, $password, $dbname);

// Insert data into the database without specifying the auto-increment primary key
$sql = "INSERT INTO table_name (column1, column2) VALUES ('value1', 'value2')";
if ($conn->query($sql) === TRUE) {
    echo "New record created successfully";
} else {
    echo "Error: " . $sql . "<br>" . $conn->error;
}

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