PHP - @param in comment

In php, why do people sometimes have things like

param mixed $value

as comment in their code (usually found in Object-Ori开发者_如何学Goented PHP)? When should you write that yourself and how exactly should you use it?

Thanks!

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It's used by IDEs to auto-generate tooltips and documentation, usually based on Javadoc.

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It is written to be used with documentation generation tools and with IDEs autocompletion.

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mixed means it can accept several data types of the param.

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It's a standardized way of formatting comments. You can read more about it here: http://www.phpdoc.org/about