What is the best practice for creating a function in PHP that increments a variable by 1 with each call or submission?

To create a function in PHP that increments a variable by 1 with each call or submission, you can use static variables within the function. By using a static variable, the value will persist between function calls and increment properly each time the function is called. This ensures that the variable retains its value and increments correctly with each call.

function incrementVariable() {
    static $counter = 0;
    $counter++;
    return $counter;
}

// Usage example
echo incrementVariable(); // Output: 1
echo incrementVariable(); // Output: 2
echo incrementVariable(); // Output: 3