Preserved Topic: PHP: '@' before statements (Page 1 of 1)

in some php-sources i see an '@' before commands etc.
example:

mysql_connect($dbhost, $dbuname, $dbpass);
@mysql_select_db("$dbname") or die ("Unable to select database");

what is this for?

Doesn't it turn off error reporting? Getting the error report on the page is useful for debugging but could have security implications so it can be handy to turn them off.

Emps


You're my wife now Dave

As Emperor said @ is error-control operator. Sometimes it is good to disable error reporting so that malicious users can't probe your scripts and find security holes...

Also, read the following two chapters from PHP's manual:

Error Handling
Error Handling and Logging Functions

thanks for the quick response, guys!

It also works well as you have it shown with "die" to give your own error messages that the user might understand, instead of the error message that PHP will generate.

-Butcher-