How do you increment an assigned variable in smarty without displaying it

Question

So I have an assigned variable in smarty:

{assign var=number value=0}

Now I can increment it using

{$number++}

Answer 1

If I had to do this I would do something like the following: {php}$number++{/php} but it is very ugly to have to use php in a smarty template. This might suggest that there is a better way of doing what you planned to do.