# Quick PHP symbol question

**URL:** <https://forum.kirupa.com/t/quick-php-symbol-question/64381>\
**Category:** Uncategorized\
**Created:** [September 15, 2004, 5:38pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/quick-php-symbol-question/64381 "2004-09-15T17:38:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![iloveitaly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7ea924/32.png) [@iloveitaly](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/iloveitaly)\
**Post date:** [September 15, 2004, 5:38pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/quick-php-symbol-question/64381/1 "2004-09-15T17:38:01Z")

</div>

I’ve seen the @ symbol used in PHP. Usally in front of a function, what excalty does it do…?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/6/2/621e5c11736f46532526e61be85940af4230f3e5.png) [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)\
**Post date:** [September 15, 2004, 6:56pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/quick-php-symbol-question/64381/2 "2004-09-15T18:56:41Z")

</div>

It prevents the function from printing out an error message to the screen 🙂

For example, with this script:

```php

 <?php
 mysql_connect("foo", "foo", "foo");
 ?>
 

```

it would normally print out “Warning: mysql\_connect(): Unknown MySQL Server Host ‘foo’ (1) in - on line 2”

However, with the @ in front of mysql\_connect, it prints out nothing, because the @ supresses the error message.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/6/2/621e5c11736f46532526e61be85940af4230f3e5.png) [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)\
**Post date:** [September 15, 2004, 7:17pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/quick-php-symbol-question/64381/3 "2004-09-15T19:17:41Z")

</div>

ahhh, ok, simple enough, thanks!