operators - PHP functions and @functions

Basically, I've seen people using @ before their function calls, not for every function, but for some kind of extension functions like file_get_contents(), mysql_connect() and so on.

And yes, the question is: For what purpose are there these @s before function calls?

Or in other words, what is the difference between @file_get_contents() and file_get_contents()?

Answer

@ is an error control operator. Basically it's suppressing errors.