The @ operator in PHP is used to suppress errors and warning messages. When placed before an expression, it tells PHP to ignore any errors that occur during the evaluation of that expression. This can be useful in situations where you want to suppress a warning message that is not important, or when you’re not interested in handling a specific error.

Here’s an example of using the @ operator to suppress an error:

@unlink("non_existent_file.txt");

In this example, the @ operator is used to suppress the error that would be generated if the file “non_existent_file.txt” does not exist and the unlink() function is called on it.

While the @ operator can be useful for suppressing specific errors, it should be used with caution. Suppressing errors can hide important information that can make it difficult to diagnose and fix problems. It’s generally better to handle errors in a controlled manner using techniques such as custom error handling with set_error_handler() or exception handling with try and catch blocks.

In general, it’s recommended to only use the @ operator in cases where you’re certain that an error will occur, but you don’t want it to be displayed to the user or logged. It’s not a good practice to use it for suppressing errors in general or as a way of avoiding proper error handling.

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