The only error control operator PHP supports is the at sign (@). It is prepended to an expression, any error messages generated by that expression will be ignored.

    <?php
    $my_file = @file ('non_existent_file')
    ?>

In the above example a non existent file is opened, since the expression is prepended by sign "@", it will not display the error message. The Error Control Operator can be prepended with expressions, variables, function and include() calls, constants etc. But cannot be used with function or class definitions, or conditional structures.

Double Check before using the error-control operator, prefixing the error control operator will even disable error reporting for critical errors that will terminate script execution. It will also disable error reporting for simple errors like mistyped commands etc.