What best practices should be followed to prevent errors related to auto-increment fields and unique constraints when using PHP for database operations?

To prevent errors related to auto-increment fields and unique constraints when using PHP for database operations, it is important to properly handle these constraints in your SQL queries. When inserting data into a table with an auto-increment field, do not include the auto-increment field in your INSERT query. For unique constraints, make sure to check for duplicates before inserting data to avoid violating the constraint.

// Example of inserting data into a table with an auto-increment field
$sql = "INSERT INTO table_name (column1, column2) VALUES ('value1', 'value2')";
$result = mysqli_query($conn, $sql);

// Example of checking for duplicates before inserting data into a table with a unique constraint
$sql = "SELECT * FROM table_name WHERE unique_column = 'value'";
$result = mysqli_query($conn, $sql);

if(mysqli_num_rows($result) == 0) {
    $sql = "INSERT INTO table_name (unique_column, column1, column2) VALUES ('value', 'value1', 'value2')";
    $result = mysqli_query($conn, $sql);
} else {
    echo "Duplicate entry found for unique_column";
}