regarding IF/ELSE statements question - why the "!@"?

[rootKID]

Hi W3S! Been a while!

So, i have a question in relation to an if/else statement. It has been a while since ive build websites and want back in the game.

i came across a cms system last night, relatively new, it's one of my friends local build im checking out. In an if/else statement, he is putting something like this down:

!@(
  $GLOBALS["{$DB['globals']}"] = mysqli_connect(
    $DB['host'],
    $DB['user'],
    $DB['password']
  )
)

Now i know everything inside of the if/else statement, but why the "!@" in the if statement in front of it? Is it just not enough with the "!" sign?

Thanks in advance for clarification

Regards, rootKID.

[ckrudelux]

@ means that it suppress any error triggered by that expression.

https://www.php.net/manual/en/language.operators.errorcontrol.php

[Ingolme]

The error suppression operator is a very hacky solution to prevent warnings. If your code needs this then there is something wrong with your code.

[rootKID]

ok got it, thanks for information ^^'