Increment field of mysql database using codeigniter's active record syntax

You can do as given below:

$this->db->where('id', $post['identifier']);
$this->db->set('votes', 'votes+1', FALSE);
$this->db->update('users');

The reason this works is because the third (optional) FALSE parameter tells CodeIgniter not to protect the generated query with backticks ('). This means that the generated SQL will be:

UPDATE users SET votes= votes + 1 WHERE id= '44'

If you notice, the backticks are removed from '(votes+1)', which produces the desired effect of incrementing the votes attribute by 1.

$data = array('votes' => 'votes + 1');

foreach ($data as $key=>$val) {
    $this->db->set($key, $val, FALSE);
}

$this->db->where('id', $post['identifier']);
$this->db->update('users', $data);