On a SO question I asked here about some code I was unsure about, someone replied "BTW, horrible code there: it uses the error suppressing symbol (@) a lot."

Is there a reason why this is bad practice? With things like:

$db=@new mysqli($db_info) or die('Database error');

, it allows me to display just a custom error message. Without error suppressing, then it would still display the typical PHP message of:

Warning: mysqli::mysqli(): php_network_getaddresses: getaddrinfo failed: No such host is known. in some\file\path on line 6

as well as 'Database error'.

Is error suppressing always bad, and if so, what specifically about the above is bad?

Update: the actual code that I'm using is:

or error('Datatabase error', 'An error occurred with the database' . (($debug_mode) ? '<br />MySQL reported: <b>' . $db->error . '</b><br />Error occurred on line <b>' . __LINE__ . '</b> of <b>' . __FILE__ . '</b>' : ''))

which removes all previous output and displays an error message. So the fact that the error message doesn't include details about what specifically happened (which people seem to be suggesting as a reason why error suppressing is bad) is irrelevant.

On a SO question I asked here about some code I was unsure about, someone replied "BTW, horrible code there: it uses the error suppressing symbol (@) a lot."

Is there a reason why this is bad practice? With things like:

$db=@new mysqli($db_info) or die('Database error');

, it allows me to display just a custom error message. Without error suppressing, then it would still display the typical PHP message of:

Warning: mysqli::mysqli(): php_network_getaddresses: getaddrinfo failed: No such host is known. in some\file\path on line 6

as well as 'Database error'.

Is error suppressing always bad, and if so, what specifically about the above is bad?

Update: the actual code that I'm using is:

or error('Datatabase error', 'An error occurred with the database' . (($debug_mode) ? '<br />MySQL reported: <b>' . $db->error . '</b><br />Error occurred on line <b>' . __LINE__ . '</b> of <b>' . __FILE__ . '</b>' : ''))

which removes all previous output and displays an error message. So the fact that the error message doesn't include details about what specifically happened (which people seem to be suggesting as a reason why error suppressing is bad) is irrelevant.

On a SO question I asked here about some code I was unsure about, someone replied "BTW, horrible code there: it uses the error suppressing symbol (@) a lot."

Is there a reason why this is bad practice? With things like:

$db=@new mysqli($db_info) or die('Database error');

, it allows me to display just a custom error message. Without error suppressing, then it would still display the typical PHP message of:

Warning: mysqli::mysqli(): php_network_getaddresses: getaddrinfo failed: No such host is known. in some\file\path on line 6

as well as 'Database error'.

Is error suppressing always bad, and if so, what specifically about the above is bad?

On a SO question I asked here about some code I was unsure about, someone replied "BTW, horrible code there: it uses the error suppressing symbol (@) a lot."

Is there a reason why this is bad practice? With things like:

$db=@new mysqli($db_info) or die('Database error');

, it allows me to display just a custom error message. Without error suppressing, then it would still display the typical PHP message of:

Warning: mysqli::mysqli(): php_network_getaddresses: getaddrinfo failed: No such host is known. in some\file\path on line 6

as well as 'Database error'.

Is error suppressing always bad, and if so, what specifically about the above is bad?

Update: the actual code that I'm using is:

or error('Datatabase error', 'An error occurred with the database' . (($debug_mode) ? '<br />MySQL reported: <b>' . $db->error . '</b><br />Error occurred on line <b>' . __LINE__ . '</b> of <b>' . __FILE__ . '</b>' : ''))

which removes all previous output and displays an error message. So the fact that the error message doesn't include details about what specifically happened (which people seem to be suggesting as a reason why error suppressing is bad) is irrelevant.