Format of comments in CI source files?

[eluser]Jonny Noog[/eluser]
Just curious to know what (if any) application outputs the format of comments I see in the CI source files? Such as this for example:

Code:

/**
* CodeIgniter
*
* An open source application development framework for PHP 4.3.2 or newer
*
* @package        CodeIgniter
* @author        ExpressionEngine Dev Team
* @copyright    Copyright (c) 2008, EllisLab, Inc.
* @license        http://ellislab.com/codeigniter/user-guide/license.html
* @link        http://codeigniter.com
* @since        Version 1.0
* @filesource
*/

What is the relevance of the "@" in @package, @author, @LinK, etc? It seems like some kind of format intended to be machine parsed in some way?

[eluser]Thorpe Obazee[/eluser]
http://manual.phpdoc.org/HTMLSmartyConve...s.pkg.html

[eluser]Jonny Noog[/eluser]
Thanks.