The error control operator@ is used to prepend to an expression or function,
It will ignore all error messages generated by the expression or function.
<?php
$handle = fopen("c:\\test.txt", "r");
// Warning: fopen(c:\test.txt): failed to open stream: No such file or directory
$handle = @fopen("c:\\test.txt", "r");
var_dump($handle); // false
?>