*SOLVED* @ symbol usage

[acedanger]

I've been searcing around the web and have noticed some people using the @ symbol in front of mysql_* functions. What does the @ symbol mean and what does it do?

[wildteen88]

It surpresses error messages, which means it hides the error message which is good on a production server (live site) but not when you are on devlopment server (making your script).

Take this example:
[code]<?php

if($_GET['var']))
{
    echo $_GET['var'] . '<br /><br />';
}

?>
<a href="?var=hello">Set $_GET['var'] </a>[/code]
When you run that code depending on you error reporting level and whether display errors is enabled you'll get an notice message like this:
[!--quoteo--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE[/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--quotec--]Notice: Undefined index: var in path/to/file.php on line 3[/quote]
When you add the @ symbol in front of the $_GET['var'] variable it wont show the error message.

Hope that helps. I dont really recommend the use of the @ symbol, unless it is really nessecary, as it is a from of lazy programming.

[acedanger]

Thanks wildteen88, that's exactly the kind of information I was looking for!

[Brandon Jaeger]

Thank you :)