What is the use of the @ symbol in PHP?

I have seen uses of @ in front of certain functions, like the following:

$fileHandle = @fopen($fileName, $writeAttributes);

What is the use of this symbol?

What does &$ mean in PHP?

passing argument through reference (&$) and by $ is that when you pass argument through reference you work on original variable, means if you change it inside your function it's going to be changed outside of it as well, if you pass argument as a copy, function creates copy instance of this variable, and work on this ...

What is the name of symbol in PHP?

This is called the Object Operator. It is used to access properties and methods inside a class, where you put the -> symbol after.

It suppresses error messages — see Error Control Operators in the PHP manual.