What does “@” mean in Windows batch scripts

Question

I saw @ is used in such contexts:

@echo off

@echo start eclipse.exe

What does @ mean here?

Answer 1

It means "don't echo the command to standard output".

Rather strangely,

echo off

will send echo off to the output! So,

@echo off

sets this automatic echo behaviour off - and stops it for all future commands, too.

Source: http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/batch.mspx?mfr=true