CODEWITHSUNDEEP
php
Neon Physics
Neon Physics

Reputation: 3477

Why the '@' in the comments?

Sometimes I see php comments with '@' in front of some lines. Like @Author. Is there any particular reason for this? I cannot seem to find anything about this. I am assuming there is highly used parser that looks for '@'s.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 186

Answers (3)

EboMike
EboMike

Reputation: 77752

There are lots of packages that parse source code for comments and create intricate help files in various formats (like HTML, Windows .chm files, etc.). Java, obviously, has javadoc, but there's also Doxygen and Doc-O-Matic, just to name a few.

Upvotes: 1

makdad
makdad

Reputation: 6450

This is used by automatic documentation generators to create documentation from the comments. There are a few tools and formats out there:

  • phpDocumentor
  • Doxygen
  • HeaderDoc

To list a few.

Upvotes: 2

Pekka
Pekka

Reputation: 449465

This is most likely phpDocumentor notation, a program which parses source code (and those @ comments) to auto-generate documentation. Many IDEs also provide intelligent lookup and autocomplete functionality based on these comments.

Example:

/**
 * Echoes "example".
 * @author Pekka
 * @version 1.5
 * @return void
 */
 function example()
  {
   echo "example";
  }

Upvotes: 10

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