What is the difference between the function calls “mail()” and “@mail()”?

Question

I am writing a PHP mail function and some examples have @mail(…) and others have just mail(…).

What is the difference and which one is best to use?

Cheers

Intussuscept

Also see #3737639 – Radiochemistry

Answer 1

@ supresses all warnings/errors, which mail() function may throw.

It is not good practice to use "@", because you never know if something doesn't work and also it hits the performance of you PHP application too!

Veterinary

Brilliant :) That answered my question perfectly – Intussuscept

Answer 2

It's the same function but with error suppression

PHP: Error Control Operators - Manual

Sldney

Answer 3

@mail means you are suppressing any errors that might occur while trying to send the email, see this SO question for more information: Suppress error with @ operator in PHP

Asiatic

Cheers. That answers more of my questions. Thanks for the help – Intussuscept

Answer 4

Error suppression is resource-consuming operation. It is recommended to call functions without @ and use exceptions/error handling

Helvellyn

I would normally use the non-suppressed functions, but I found the @mail in a site I have been maintaining and didn't want to mess with it too much. – Intussuscept