What is the significance of using the "@" symbol before a variable in PHP?

Using the "@" symbol before a variable in PHP suppresses any error messages that may occur if the variable is undefined. This can be useful in situations where you want to prevent error messages from being displayed to the user, such as when dealing with optional variables or handling errors gracefully.

// Example of using "@" symbol before a variable to suppress errors
@$variable = $_POST['optional_variable'];