title: Can someone explain the use of @ comments in this PHP class?
body: <p>I was trying to find an OO way of dealing with databases in PHP, and came across this: <a href="https://github.com/adriengibrat/Simple-Database-PHP-Class" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/adriengibrat/Simple-Database-PHP-Class</a></p>
  
  <p>Before trying to use it, I'm reading through the code trying to understand exactly what is being done (and failing quite miserably so far).</p>
  
  <p>Along the way I saw comments prefixed with "@" that I'm not used to seeing. Is this something than IDE would add on or is it an OO way of commenting things within a class? Look at this snippet for example:</p>
  
  <pre><code>/**
   * Get and set default Db configurations
   * @uses   static::config
   * @param  string|array $key   [Optional] Name of configuration or hash array of configurations names / values
   * @param  mixed        $value [Optional] Value of the configuration
   * @return mixed        Configuration value(s), get all configurations when called without arguments
   */
  static public function config ( $key = null, $value = null ) {
      if ( ! isset( $key ) )
          return static::$config;
      if ( isset( $value ) )
          return static::$config[ (string) $key ] = $value;
      if ( is_array( $key ) )
          return array_map( 'static::config', array_keys( (array) $key ), array_values( (array) $key ) );
      if ( isset( static::$config[ $key ] ) )
          return static::$config[ $key ];
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Can someone explain the significance of these comments?</p>
  
  <p>Also, though unrelated to my question, would anyone be able to comment on whether this looks like a good way to deal with databases in an OO fashion? (take a look at the link above to get an idea).</p>
  
  <p>Thanks!</p>